Olympic Heroes
by little ninja of awesome
Summary: Olympic AU pairings included are Supermartian,Spitfire,Chalant,AquaRocket,and RoyxOC. The Young Justice team was never formed, in fact the would-be members of the team all kind of hate each other. What happens when they all meet in civvies at the Olympic Training Facility and have to live together? Rated for moderate language because I'm paranoid. OC-centric.
1. Chapter 1

Summary: Olympic AU, none of the season 1 team knows each other outside of fighting crime. None of them are friends; in fact they all kind of hate each other, thus they don't know each other's secret identity. All of them are competing in the 2012 Summer Olympics because they have the skills to compete well, without using their powers (they wear power inhibitors so that they aren't tempted). Pairings: AquaRocket, SuperMartian, Chalant, Spitfire, RoyxOC.

A/N: For the team members who don't wear masks i.e. Superboy, Aqualad, Zatanna and Rocket basically none of them know each other very well and Superboy is less likely to be around after a fight and is always moving during one so they don't see him enough to I.D. him in civvies. Aqualad, in this story, is able to use some Atlantean magic to hide his tattoos and his gills, the power inhibitor prevents him from breathing from them, and so they don't know who he is also. In this story Zatanna just wears a black domino mask OK, because I don't think she would be the kind of person who would just avoid everyone during and after a fight like Superboy might. And for Rocket, her 'mask' covers her overall face shape and she basically has her glow/power things always up when she is around the other 'sidekicks'(for the sake of this story). The power inhibitors are little things they can wear during their events, like goggles for Kaldur or a necklace for KF, so they are not noticeable. Oh yeah, the story is mainly told from the OC's point of view but may switch between the different members of the team.

* * *

'There it is,' Suki thought, 'my home for the next 6 months.' The Olympic training facility in Colorado Springs was huge, there were separate dorms for the different age groups, and she was staying in the dorm for the Olympic competitors ages 18-25, the young adults. There was an aquatic center for swimming, a shooting range for both archery and rifle shooting, and two sports centers, each with multiple gyms and sport courts inside. She had access to any of these facilities if she wanted, but as a judo fighter she didn't think she would be using some of them that often.

She adjusted her ring, making sure that the telltale symbol was facing the underside of her hand, so that it was as unlikely to be seen as possible. After making sure she had completed her procedure for hiding her identity, she took a deep breath and walked into her dorm building.

* * *

Dick Grayson looked around the room at the people he would be living with for the next 6 months until the Olympics started. A black-haired girl with medium dark skin had just walked into the room and sat next to the blond girl who was already there. There were two red-haired boys, one other black-haired boy, and a blond boy, all of them looked older than him. There was also another two other black-haired girls, one pale the other with cocoa skin, and a red-haired girl, the pale black-haired girl was the only one who looked about his age.

Just then, one of the red-haired boys, 'Wally West', Dick remembered he had introduced himself, walked over to the new girl and said,

"Hey babe, are you from Tennessee? Because you're the only ten I see. So how 'bout telling me your name?" Dick shook his head at Wally's idiotic pick up line and then at his idiocy in general because the girl then stood up, looked at Wally, and flipped him. The blond who had been sitting next to her laughed; Wally had hit on her as well when she first came in.

"It's Suki Santiago, I'm from Albuquerque not Tennessee, and if you hit on me like that again I will make the pain in your back the least of your problems." She said, bending down so he couldn't pretend not to hear her. Then she went back to talking to the blond.

"It hurts so good," he mumbled as he came back to sit by Dick.

"Dude, that was not smart, she's the number one female Judo fighter in the U.S. You were just asking to get your butt kicked." Dick snickered at the look on his face.

"Well how was I supposed to know that? She looked like she was a gymnast or something," Wally said, clearly upset that he had just gotten his butt handed to him by a girl. Dick was about to comment on this when their dorm advisor, James Brown, walked in.

"OK everyone, listen up, here are your room assignments: in the left wing, room one is Kaldur Curry and Roy Harper," The older red-haired boy and the blond boy nodded to each other, "room two is Richard Grayson and Wally West and room three is Conner Kent, alone since there are five boys and we can't have you sharing a room with one of the girls since they have the same problem. " the other black haired boy nodded his understanding, "So in room one in the right wing is Artemis Crock and Zatanna Zatara," the blond girl next to Suki and the pale black-haired girl looked at each other, "room two is Raquel Ervin and Suki Santiago," The black girl looked over at Suki and they smiled at each other, "and room three is Megan Morse. Alright, feel free to go settle in and dinner is at 6:30 in the dining room down the hall."

* * *

The room was nice, but plain. There were two twin beds, two night tables, two dressers, and a TV. It looked like whoever was in charge wanted the rooms to look as symmetrical as possible because there was one of everything on each side of the room except for the TV, which was in the center.

"It's good to see you again, Raquel" Suki said to the other girl once she had put her bags down.

"Yeah, it's been, what, two years since we saw each other at that competition in Dakota?"

"Yeah," Suki said replied remembering that trip. She had gone to Dakota City, first and foremost, for her judo competition, but had ended up having to protect the city, with Rocket and Icon, from Holocaust and his gang. She should have expected Rocket showing up when there was trouble; after all it was her city. Suki really hated that girl, she didn't really know why, but she knew Rocket got on her nerves way to often for it to be accidental. "That was a really interesting tournament weekend. Do you remember how Rocket, Icon, and that green lantern girl fought that gang?"

"Yeah, I don't know why Emerald Torch was there though. I guess she was just flying through and thought she needed to help." Raquel said, bitterly. "I mean she helped, but I think Rocket and Icon could have handled it themselves."

"Well, I'm not gonna argue with you, it's your hometown not mine." She said laughing inside. 'If only Raquel knew she was talking to Emerald Torch right now. I wonder what she would do.'

"Come on it's almost six-thirty; we should head down for dinner." Raquel said putting her suitcase under her bed.

"Right behind you." They left the room and headed downstairs to the dining room.

* * *

Dinner was simple; spaghetti and meatballs, and they spent it getting to know one another. For example: Dick and Artemis learned that they were both from Gotham City and Megan and Conner were both from Happy Harbor. Kaldur was from Florida and was a swimmer, Roy was from Star City and, like its heroes, he was an archer, along with Artemis, Wally was from Central City and ran in track and field, Zatanna was from New York and, with Megan, was an equestrian, Dick was a gymnast, and Raquel was in judo with Suki. They talked long after they had all finished dinner and only went back to their rooms to sleep when Brown told them to.

Suki waited until Raquel went to sleep to leave the room. They were on the second floor so if she wanted to leave she would either have to activate her ring now and fly out the nearest window or go downstairs and risk getting caught sneaking out. She chose the former since she didn't want to have to come up with an explanation as to why she was sneaking around the dorm at midnight. So she went to the closest window, opened it, and activated her ring, changing into Emerald Torch. She had updated the Green Lantern uniform to fit her style more, so she had white knee-high boots, a white skirt, white, fingerless gloves, and a white leather jacket, a green shirt with the white Green Lantern symbol, and a green domino mask. She flew out of the newly opened window and started to patrol the city, little did she know she wasn't the only hero out in Colorado Springs that night.

* * *

Red Arrow jumped across to another rooftop on his patrol of Colorado Springs. So far the town had been quiet, but he knew better and was sure that something would happen that would require his stepping in. Just then his police scanner picked up a bank robbery a couple of blocks away. 'Oh well,' he thought, 'they might not need me, but I shouldn't take any chances, and plus I'm bored as hell.' And he ran off to the bank.

When he got there he saw the robbers starting to make their getaway and immediately fired an exploding arrow right in front of the robbers, causing them to stop in their tracks. As he got ready to fire a net arrow to trap the robbers, they were encased in a glowing green cage. He looked up and saw Emerald Torch, 'Damn it,' he thought, she was his least favorite of the sidekicks of the Justice League, and he barely liked any of them in the first place. Torch just smirked and winked at him, "Looks like I caught your criminals before you did, Red." He scowled at her infuriating name for him. "I had it handled; you didn't need to do anything." He said as he shot four arrows at the bags of money the robbers were still carrying, attaching them to the bank wall. "What are you doing here anyway, Torch?"

"I could ask you the same question," She said coming down to meet him on the ground, "but since you asked first, I was on my way to meet with Green Lantern and I saw the robbery and no police and thought I'd take care of it quickly and be on my way, your turn."

"Visiting a friend," he answered gruffly.

"Whatever, don't tell me, I don't really care. I'm gonna take these guys to jail, do you think you can take care of getting the money back to the bank yourself or do you need me to come back?" she asked sarcastically.

He rolled his eyes and said, "I think I can handle it, just take care of them and get on your way to Green Lantern." She flew off with the cage flying just beneath her and Red breathed a sigh of relief, thinking 'Well, at least that was a one-time thing,' and took the bags of money back into the bank and went off to finish his patrol.

* * *

A/N: So this is my first story, and I'm moderatly happy with it. Review and tell me what you think. No flames please, constructive critism only.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: So this is chapter 2 and it starts the morning after the last chapter ended, so day 2 at the Olympic Training facility.

Disclaimer: I only own my OC and the plot.

Artemis woke up early and headed down to the kitchen to get something to eat before she started her training for the day. When she walked in she saw Wally sitting at the counter with like two full plates of sugary food in front of him and a dirty one in the sink behind him.

"You know," she said, walking over to the fridge to get some yogurt, "most athletes try to eat _healthy_ when they're training."

"Good morning to you too, Artemis," He grumbled, "and I have to eat this much because I have a high metabolism and I'm a runner so I burn nearly all the calories from all this anyway. By the way, did you ever think that it's ironic that your name is Artemis and you're an archer?"

Artemis nearly choked on her breakfast. "W-why would you think that?" she stuttered through her shock.

"Well, Artemis is the Greek goddess of archery and you're an Olympic archer, it's just kinda funny." He said giving her a questioning look.

"Oh, yeah, I guess. I never thought about that but my parents must have seen the irony before I did. They really wanted me to be an archer." She said, relieved that he hadn't seemed to notice the real irony in her name. She walked over to the trash and threw out her now empty yogurt container. "Well, it was nice talking to you Wally, but I'm gonna head down to the archery range."

"Ok, later, Arty"

"And don't call me 'Arty'" she said as she walked out of the kitchen.

* * *

As she walked down to the range she met up with Raquel and Suki who were headed for the gym to spar.

"Hey guys," she said, waving, as they passed each other.

"Hey," they both said, "Are you going down to the range to practice?" Suki asked, yawning.

"Yeah, figure it can't hurt to start practicing early."

"That's what I told Suki, but I think she only agreed because she's kinda dead on her feet." said Raquel laughing.

Artemis laughed, "Well good luck practicing you guys, Suki you should drink some coffee when you guys are done; you look exhausted." The other girls waved and headed to the gym and Artemis continued on her way to the range.

When she got there she noticed that she wasn't the only one who thought it was a good idea to start without the rest of the archery team. Roy Harper was already there and nodded to her when she walked up but didn't offer any other kind of greeting. She decided to put this off as him just being tired like Suki. After all, most people didn't know how to deal with late nights like she did. Being a vigilante, and especially a vigilante who lived in Gotham and patrolled the poorer parts in addition to the other city she patrolled, meant she had to be able to work properly the day after a late night patrol, so being up until only about 11 was just a normal night for her. As she started to do some warm-up shots, closer to the target than she normally would, she thought about what had happened at breakfast. 'I can't believe how close Wally got to discovering my secret life. I guess it was lucky he didn't seem to realize the other reason my name is ironic; Central City must not hear much about me since I usually patrol Star City with Green Arrow and I'm sure he doesn't hear anything about what I do in Gotham. The only Gotham heroes anyone cares about are Batman and his little Boy Wonder.'

"Hey, Artemis, are you going to start taking some real shots or just do warm-ups all day?" Roy asked shaking her out of her thoughts. She looked over at him ready to retort back when she saw he was smiling good-naturedly at her, 'he was just trying to get me back on track,' she thought.

"Yeah, guess I'm still just a bit tired; I was spacing out." She lied and stepped back to the main distance she would be shooting from.

* * *

_Thud. _Raquel's fist hit the punching bag in front of her. Suki and she were warming up before they actually started sparring. 'Probably a good thing, too,' she thought. Suki still looked exhausted. 'I wonder what she was doing last night that made her so tired.' She looked over at Suki seeing her only barely making the punching bag move with each hit. 'Normally it moves so much more than this. I might actually win most of our sparring matches today. But, should I be worried, I mean she is my friend.' As Raquel was debating things inside her head she didn't notice Suki coming up to tell her she was ready to move on to the nest part of their warm up.

"Hey, Raquel, are you alive in there? I said we should probably move on with the warm ups."

"What, oh yeah sure, glad to see you're waking up a little." She laughed as they got into position. *They stood side by side with their arms around each other's shoulders. Raquel then moved into a throwing position in front of Suki then Suki stepped around her and did the same, they continued like this until they reached to opposite wall.* "So, shall we start sparring or do you think you need some more warm ups to wake you up?" Raquel asked Suki not wanting to spar with her if it wasn't a fair fight.

"No, I'm fine, that last one really woke me up, let's start." Suki said walking over to where they kept the leather sparring boots and gloves. She grabbed a set for herself and threw one to Raquel.

"By the way," Raquel said as they put the gear on, "Why are you so tired? What, were you running around the city all night or something?" Suki froze, but she regained her composure so quickly Raquel was sure she had imagined it.

"I just had some trouble sleeping, you know excited about being here, it finally seems real." She said shrugging. "Well, let's get started." She started walking over to the sparring ring in the gym. Raquel followed her and they started sparring. Punch, spin, kick, duck, trip, jump, jab, block. That was their routine for the next two hours until they both decided they needed to take a break.

"Maybe we should head back to the dorms and get some lunch," Raquel suggested as they took off their gear. Suki agreed and they started walking back in the direction of the dorms.

* * *

"You know, we should really look for some restaurants around town so we can eat somewhere outside of the dorms." Suki said as they walked into the kitchen.

"Yeah, we totally shou-," Raquel stopped mid-sentence.

"What's wrong?" Suki asked, she followed Raquel line of sight and saw Kaldur sitting at the island. "Oooh," she said pulling Raquel, slightly unwillingly, into the room. "Hey Kaldur, what's up?"

"Not much, I was just getting some lunch before heading to the pool, and please, my friends call me Kal." He said smiling. He picked up his now empty plate and placed it in the sink. "I will see you two later," he said as he walked towards the door.

"OK, later Kal, have fun training." Suki said turning to Raquel. "You like him." She accused, pointing a finger at Raquel.

"W-what, no I don't, t-that's ridiculous!" Raquel stammered.

"Yeah, uh-huh, sure" Suki said with a knowing smirk.

"Suki!"

"Yes?" she asked innocently.

"Just don't tell anyone, OK? Especially not him." Raquel said giving up on denying it.

"Don't worry Raquel, I know how to keep a secret and yours is safe with me." Suki assured her with a friendly smile. "Now, how about we get that lunch?" Suki said as she walked around the island to get some bread for sandwiches.

'Phew, that was close' Raquel thought. "Sounds g-,"_beep-beep-beep_ Raquel's alert went off.

A/N: I feel really bad for leaving it there, but i kinda want the action to be next chapter, plus i think this one was getting kinda long. Also I probably won't update this fast regularly, the only reason this is up is because I finished my homework early and had this typed up because I started this a long time before I actually got an account.

Reviewers:

superbubbles: Conner is a weightlifter, sorry I thought it was in there and thank you.

thesilverlion: I'm glad you like it and yeah you're probably right I just made her a sidekick because she got the power ring when she was young so G.L. trained her on Earth and she just became his sidekick/partner, but they are all older now so none of them are really sidekicks anymore.

geekychic1999: Thank you so much!

Review, no flames please. :)

*I got this idea from here: ?/topic/49836-warm-up-exercises/


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I sadly own nothing except the plot and my OC :(, but did you really expect anything different?**

* * *

"Um, are you gonna get that?" Suki asked pointing towards Raquel.

"No, it's just someone trying to sell me something, but I think I'm gonna skip out on lunch, relax a bit before we have to meet the rest of the team, OK?" Raquel said, already leaving the kitchen, not waiting for an answer from Suki.

"Uh, sure it's not like you suggested we get lunch or anything." Suki said, mainly to herself since Raquel was probably out of hearing range.

* * *

Raquel opened the door to her and Suki's room and ran over to her bed, pulling out her almost empty suitcase. She dug around, looking for her costume and, most importantly, her belt. 'There it is' she thought with a sigh of relief. She got suited up and was flying out the window in a matter of minutes. When she got into the air she checked her alert again 'What are Cheetah and Gemini doing in the Colorado Springs science museum? Better question, why are they working together?' She wondered as she changed her course so she was heading towards downtown. When she got there she saw the cop cars surrounding the main entrance. 'Why do they always only cover the front entrance, any good villain tends to go out the back or, you know, the roof.' She thought as she flew over them and through the broken doors of the museum. As she flew in she saw Cheetah heading towards the genecology and human physiology research section of the museum, Gemini probably already there. 'Predictable, Cheetah's just looking for another possible way to change herself back, but where's Gemini?' Suddenly she felt something hit her inertia field. She looked behind her to see Gemini pulling her fist back towards herself, looking disappointed that her blow had done nothing but catch her attention.

"What are you after, Gemini?" Rocket yelled at her, preparing herself to fight.

"Yeah, I'm gonna tell you that." She laughed and then made her fist into a hammer and aimed a blow for Rocket's head. Rocket started to duck, but she didn't need to bother, Gemini's fist was struck by what looked like an energy blast. Rocket looked behind her and saw, to her vexation, the magician Zatanna.

"Think you can handle Cheetah? I'll take care of Gemini." She said to Rocket, clearly thinking Rocket couldn't handle Gemini by herself.

"You-I-fine." She stammered, angry, as she then flew off in the direction Cheetah had taken. 'What the hell, 'handle Cheetah' she could at least _act_ like she thinks I'm a good enough hero, _not_ that I need her approval, I've proven myself, she's only here because she inherited her powers from her daddy.' She thought as she came upon the room Cheetah had entered; she could tell because the door was broken down with no attempt at subtlety. She flew in and started looking for any sign of Cheetah. She heard a crash off to her left and headed in that direction. Cheetah was standing in front of one of the computers, looking frantically for something.

"Cheetah," Rocket yelled, landing and getting into a defensive position, "step away from the computer and come quietly or this is gonna get ugly."

Cheetah spun around in surprise, "How did you get back here? Gemini was supposed to stop anyone from following me while I got my information!"

"Yeah, well, I had some help," Rocket cringed internally at having to call Zatanna showing up help. "Now, are we going to do this the easy way or the fun way?" she asked making a 'come get it' motion to Cheetah. Cheetah yelled and charged at Rocket. 'Fun way it is.' Rocket thought as she dodged Cheetah's attack, her momentum sending her toward the opposite wall. Cheetah stopped herself just before she hit the wall and turned around again to face Rocket. "Nice try, but what are you even after, another way to change yourself back? You've been trying for years, stealing this particular research isn't any more likely to work than anything else." She said, trying to figure out if that was the real reason Cheetah was here; it just seemed too repetitive, even for a super villain.

Cheetah sneered, "Why does it matter to you whether I'm stealing this for myself or for someone else?"

"I never said anything about you working for anyone." Rocket noticed. Cheetah snarled and Rocket knew she had struck on something important.

"I didn't come here to talk to you and I'm sure as hell not going to let you capture me." Cheetah said, charging towards Rocket again. She stepped out of the way, but Cheetah was prepared and threw her arm out to catch Rocket across the chest. Cheetah then used Rocket as her balance to spin around and aim a kick at her head, but Rocket ducked down and, grabbing Cheetah's upper arm flipped her over her shoulder. Cheetah went skidding across the floor, and as she righted herself she extended her claws. Rocket brought her kinetic energy around her fists to help end this fight quickly. They charged at each other and as Cheetah swung low to prevent Rocket from ducking again, Rocket flew above her strike and hit her in the head, successfully knocking her out.

"Finally, that was a lot more trouble than I thought it would be." She then picked Cheetah up, threw her over her shoulder, and headed back to the main room, where Zatanna was still fighting Gemini.

* * *

Zatanna watched Rocket fly in the direction she assumed Cheetah had gone. She turned towards Gemini.

"Oh so I get to fight the little magician, do I?" Gemini leered at her, clearly not expecting a challenging fight.

"Don't be so cocky, I'm not going to just let you escape," Zatanna said, readying herself to attack. "Dnib reh." She said aiming the spell at Gemini. The ropes caught and wrapped around her, but Gemini just smiled and stretched her body to move right out of them.

"That the best you got?" Gemini asked, as she pulled her fist back and punched Zatanna. Zatanna flew across the room to the opposite wall.

"Not even close. Eci diks." A sheet of ice appeared in front of Gemini, who had been running towards Zatanna for another hit. She slipped on the ice and fell.

"Nice try, but you're gonna have to do better than that if you want to stop me." Gemini stood up and jumped toward Zatanna, stretching herself into a cage as she started falling towards her, trapping her. Zatanna tried a lot of spells, but none of them seemed to have any effect on Gemini.

"Zatanna," Zatanna turned around to see Rocket, with Cheetah in tow, standing at the door to the rest of the museum. "Her weakness is fire."

"Eirf tsalb," Zatanna chanted, pointing her arms at as much of Gemini as she could. Fire flew from her hands and struck Gemini, breaking the cage she had formed herself into and she crumpled to the ground, unconscious. "Eit reh pu."

"You're welcome"

"I had it under control." Zatanna said turning away from Gemini to look at Rocket.

"Yeah, I could see that, with you trapped in a cage." Rocket retorted, putting Cheetah on the ground and moving toward Zatanna.

"If you would've given me a second I could have gotten out without your suggestion."

"Really, is that why nothing you were trying was working?"

"It was- you know what, never mind, did you at least get Cheetah?" Zatanna asked, giving up on fighting what was clearly a losing battle.

"Yeah, she was just- crap where did she go?" Rocket exclaimed as she turned to find Cheetah gone.

"You didn't even tie her up?"

"I didn't think I had to, she was unconscious."

"Well, at least I caught mine; maybe we can get some information off of her."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that," Rocket gestured behind Zatanna. The ropes that had previously been holding an unconscious Gemini were lying on the ground, cut, and neither Gemini nor Cheetah was anywhere to be found.

"Damn it! I had her and now they both got away with whatever information they were stealing." Zatanna exclaimed in anger.

"Calm down, we'll catch them eventually, and whatever Cheetah was after probably won't work for what she wants it to anyway." Rocket said, trying to pacify Zatanna.

"Whatever," Zatanna said, brushing her off and summoning her disk to fly away on. 'And to top it all off I'm late for training with Megan.' She thought as she flew back towards the Training Center.

* * *

**A/N: Please review (no flames) and if anyone has any suggestions as to who I can have Kaldur fight and/or where please leave it in a review. Oh, and for anyone who, like me, didn't know who Gemini was before this, she is Madame Rouge's daughter and has similar powers. I have most of the next chapter planned out, I just need to write it so I hope to have the next chapter up in a week or so.**

**Reviewers:**

**Poseidon'sdaughter3: Thanks and don't worry I'm going to try to put everybody in their separate training at least once throughout the story.**

**Navy Tears: Wow, thanks for every single thing in this post. I really hope I don't have to deal with many haters though.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I own only my OC, the plot, and my computer, so nothing to sue me for.**

* * *

"Hey, Megan, sorry I'm so late," Zatanna says as she rushes up to Megan, who was waiting outside the stables.

"It's no problem, I only just got here." Megan replied kindly. The two headed towards the stables and their horses. Megan's was named Carina, Cari for short, and Zatanna named hers Hecate (1). As they put the tack on their horses, Zatanna asked Megan why she had only just got there when she arrived. "Oh it's nothing I just got distracted on my way here."

"Distracted? This wouldn't have anything to do with that, and I quote, "hot weightlifter", Conner, would it?" Zatanna asked, looking over her horse to raise her eyebrow at Megan.

Megan blushed, "Maybe…"

"You do realize it's OK if you like him, right? It's not like it's a crime. Trust me I would know." The girls laughed.

"No, I know, it's just kind of embarrassing, we only met last night." 'But he seems so familiar.' She thought as she tightened the saddle on Cari. "Well, I'm done, you ready to head out?"

"Yeah, but don't think you're getting out of this conversation. We'll finish after training." Zatanna said pointing at Megan as the girls led their horses to the jumping arena to start their training. Most people wondered why equestrians always tried to train with a partner or their entire team if they could. The thing with horse riding is that you can't always accurately judge your mistakes, since you're on top of a horse and can't feel the horse's movements accurately, so it helps to have one or more other people to watch you go through a set of jumps or a dressage routine because they can see your mistakes better than you can. Plus, it's not like knowing how another person rides is going to help you beat them in a competition, their performance has no effect on yours unless you let it and, in the case that you are competing together as a team, it can't hurt to help each other out.

The fences were already set up in a common layout when the girls walked into the arena. "Do you want to go first or should I? Megan asked Zatanna from atop Cari.

"You go ahead; I think Hecate needs a warm up lap before she'll be calm enough to jump well." Zatanna replied as she set Hecate to run around to border of the arena.

Megan guided Cari in the direction of the first fence, a simple vertical with three rails. The two cleared it easily and headed to the skinny fence to the right. As they jumped this one as well, Zatanna brought Hecate to a stop and watched Megan and Cari jump. The tow continued on their routine, in whatever order Megan chose to go, and only knocked over two rails, the last in a series of bounce fences and an oxer with a water obstacle underneath it.

"You did really good Megan." Zatanna told her as she rode up.

"Thanks, but could you see what my problem was with those two rails I knocked over?" Megan replied, always quicker to get to a review on her performance than a compliment on it.

"Yeah, for the last bounce fence I think you guys broke your stride, you should work on making sure you can keep her balanced throughout all of the jumps, and with the oxer Cari halted a little, you might want to have her practice jumping water obstacles so when a different kind of that comes up she doesn't get scared." Zatanna recommended.

"Thanks, there were more bounce fences in that series than we're used to doing and I think she's really only seen a couple of different variations of water obstacles, the oxer version must have thrown her off. Well, your turn, Z." Megan replied with a smile.

"Yep and when did you start calling me 'Z'?" Zatanna asked, cocking her head towards Megan.

"I don't know it just sounds more fun than 'Zatanna'," Megan answered as she watched Zatanna steer Hecate towards the same vertical she had started on. 'And it doesn't hurt that 'Z' reminds me less of the magician Zatanna or any of the other sidekicks/ heroes/ vigilantes/ -oh you know what this is just getting too complicated I don't even know what to call all of us anymore, and you'd think I would since I'm one of them.' She thought frustrated that she didn't even know where she stood in rank in the hero world now; not really. She had never been her Uncle J'onn's sidekick, they had helped each other and he had helped her control her powers, but they were never really partners; she understood, her uncle preferred to work alone. She wasn't a member of the Justice League or any kind of mutual partnerships, 'So maybe I'm just a solo hero,' she thought. Then she remembered she was supposed to be watching Z to help her with any mistakes she made, and she was making more than Megan had, 'I guess she's got a lot on her mind too,' she thought as Zatanna rode over.

"So, was it as hard to watch as I think it was?" Zatanna asked, grimacing.

"It wasn't that bad," Megan soothed her, always ready to give compliments, even if she rarely accepted them. "You just weren't focusing enough where you needed to. You're distracted and it affected your riding."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. I'll just have to get my head in the game. Your turn again."

Megan and Zatanna continued to switch off riding the course, sometimes rearranging the fences, until their horses were too tired to continue riding.

As they walked the horses back to the stables to brush them off, Zatanna glanced at Megan and said, "So, Conner, huh?"

"Yes, Z, I like Conner, can we just drop that topic?" Megan asked, hoping her friend would just give up without a fight for once.

"Nope, I told you, you weren't getting out of having this conversation with me so we're having it."

"Ugh, fine, what do you want to know?" Megan asked as they walked their horses to their respective stall and started taking all the tack off.

"Well, how about why you like him." Zatanna said as she set Hecate's saddle on the stand.

"I don't know, he's cute, and quiet, but nice, and fun I guess."

"You got all that from one dinner?" Zatanna looked at her incredulously.

"What can I say; I'm good at reading people." Megan shrugged, she wasn't _technically _lying, she was good at reading people, she was just better at it if she could read their minds, which she refused to do when she was in civvies. She really had felt that Conner was those things based on how he acted last night.

"Ok then, next question. Do you think he likes you back?"

"I don't know, I mean I want him to, but he doesn't talk much and we haven't-"

"Megan! Calm down, I'm sure he likes you back, he'd be stupid not to." Zatanna said, trying to both calm her down and reassure her. By this time, both girls were done brushing the horses down and went to put the tack away. "If you want to make sure he notices you, we could head down to the gym; he's probably training." Zatanna told Megan with a sly smile over her shoulder.

"Are you crazy?! That's like border line stalking, Z." Megan exclaimed, though she wasn't entirely surprised Zatanna had come up with an idea like that, actually she was surprised it wasn't more devious.

"Oh come on, we can just say we're there to run on treadmills or something because leg strength is important in horse riding."

"I'm so going to regret this but OK, fine let's go." Megan said, hoping Conner wasn't at the gym.

* * *

'Wow, so someone out there just likes to make my life complicated, huh?' Megan thought as they walked into the gym and saw not only Conner, but Dick as well. 'Or maybe not,' She thought as Zatanna stopped walking next to her. 'Oh, this is gonna be fun,' "Hey guys, what are you doing?" She called out to the training boys. Zatanna looked like she wanted to gag Megan to keep her from talking, even though this was her idea.

"Just training, there's more to gymnastics than just being able to flip you know." Dick replied, putting the weight her had been lifting down to walk over to the girls. "What are you guys doing here?"

"Working on leg strength, it's sort of necessary for equestrians." Megan replied, nudging Zatanna to get her to join in on the conversation.

"Oh cool, well I was just finishing up so I'll see you guys later." Dick said, waving as he walked out the gym doors. After he left, Zatanna seemed to relax, though she still looked slightly mortified.

"How's it going, Conner?" She asked as they walked past him to the treadmills.

"Fine, you guys?" He grunted as he brought the weight he was lifting up.

"Good." The girls chorused.

"Dick, really, Z?" Megan whispered as they started running.

"Oh shut up Megan, you can't talk." Zatanna said, not trying to be mean, just embarrassed

"OK, OK I was just making sure I understood that situation is all." Megan said, barely containing her laughter.

Zatanna blushed pink and Megan was sure she wasn't the only one with a crush after only one night.

* * *

**Wow, 11 reviews. Thanks everyone who reviewed and also thanks if you put a suggestion for who Kaldur could fight. Just one thing about that. I meant what ****_villain_**** he could fight and/or where, not hero/ fellow Olympian, although those were good suggestions. So if you have any ideas about that please leave it in a review.**

**1. Megan's horse is named after a constellation and Zatanna's is named after the Greek goddess of magic.**

**Reviewers:**

**thesilverlion: Thank you very much.**

**princess of unicorns: Megan and Zatanna are both equestrians and Conner is a weight lifter.**

**Poseidon'sdaughter3: I'm glad it made you feel better, the stopping drug dealing idea is a really good one and I've actually already figured out who hates who most with the heroes, it just all hasn't shown up in the story yet, but thanks for giving me your ideas.**

**booklover1498: Thank you. **

**Angelus-v1: Thanks, I wasn't sure about the title. The idea of Kaldur fighting Phelps made me laugh for like five minutes straight, but I don't think Kaldur would be willing to hurt a civilian, but if you have an idea about a villain for him to fight I'd love to hear it.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: If I owned Young Justice, I wouldn't be writing on a fanfiction site, I would be in shock.**

**A/N: This is later in the 1****st**** week at the Olympic Training Facility, just so the story doesn't seem to take place all in one day.**

* * *

Kaldur put his goggles/power inhibitors over his eyes and prepared to jump in the pool to start his training. He took a second to adjust to breathing out of his mouth and nose and dove into the pool. He had swum about four laps freestyle when he heard his alert go off in his pile of clothes. He got out of the pool and went over to see what was going on. Ocean Master was attacking a town on the coast of California. He would have to take a zeta tube there, but he knew Aquaman was probably busy with League business o ruling Atlantis and he was the next best suited hero to deal with Ocean Master. He went to change in the locker rooms, took of the power inhibitor, lifted the Atlantean magic he had been using to hide his tattoos and gills, and snuck out the back door of the pool to get to the Zeta tubes.

When he got to the town he ran to the waterfront to see Ocean Master fighting another hero. He studied the pair as he continued on his way to the ocean and realized he was fighting Kid Flash. 'I really should have expected that, you know with him being the 'fastest boy alive', of course he would get here before me from wherever it was he was.' He charged at Ocean Master, drawing water into his water-bearers and forming them into his preferred form of swords. Kid was currently dashing around Ocean Master in the water to avoid the magical energy blasts coming from his trident.

"What are you doing here?" he asked as he ran in Aqualad's direction.

"Ocean villain, ocean hero, it's a real stretch isn't it?" He replied sarcastically **(A/N: I love the 'Aquasass' way too much)** as he slashed at Ocean master with his swords only to be deflected by the trident.

"Silly hero, you couldn't defeat me before, what makes you think you will be able to defeat me now?" Ocean Master laughed as he fired another magical blast in Kid Flash's direction. KF dodged and went in to punch Ocean Master. It did almost nothing. 'Idiot,' Aqualad thought, 'The armor helps him resist those kinds of attacks.' Aqualad decided the first thing he needed to do was land a physical blow on Ocean Master, preferably one with his swords that could damage the armor. He charged again, this time timing his strike with when Ocean Master had most of his attention focused on hitting the still dodging Kid Flash. He went low, but Ocean Master noticed him at the last moment, so he only struck a glancing blow that made a slash in the armor, instead of cutting it apart. He ran back to the land, ducked behind a flipped car and motioned for KF to join him.

"If we are going to defeat him, we need to work together." Aqualad said begrudgingly

"You got any plans, because I'm out of ideas?" KF replied as he leaned up against the car.

"Just distract him; I will take care of the rest." After he finished KF was already out in front of the car again, drawing Ocean Master's fire. Aqualad used the distraction to come up behind Ocean Master in the water. As he started to turn towards Ocean Master, he launched himself at him using the water around him, latching onto the trident, his momentum carrying him past Ocean Master and into the water on the other side of him. The second the trident was ripped from Ocean Master's grip he fell down with a cry of pain. It didn't take much effort on either part for the heroes to gather Ocean Master and hand him over to the police, who would take him to a special prison.

"How did you know taking the trident would make him collapse like that?" KF asked Aqualad before he ran off.

"I did not; I just knew that was what gave him his powers. I figured it would be easier to take him out if he could not shoot magical energy blasts at us." Aqualad replied, ever the modest hero.

Kid nodded and ran off leaving Aqualad to make sure the police had the trident as far from Ocean Master as possible and go to the zeta tubes at a normal pace. As he walked he thought about the fight that had just taken place. 'What was Ocean Master doing attacking land-dwelling citizens? Attacking innocents isn't terribly uncommon for Ocean Master, but usually they are Atlantean citizens. He wants to take control of Atlantis; most everyone who lives in the city knows that. Ocean Master will do almost anything to dethrone Aquaman. I would understand if this town had some significance to Aquaman, but there isn't anything I can think of that would affect Aquaman here. So what was Ocean Master doing, and why?' By this time Aqualad had reached the zeta tube and was changing back into his civilian clothes and activating the Atlantean magic he had learned from Queen Mera.

* * *

Kaldur's first impression of the media room in the dorm was pandemonium. Wally and Dick were arguing about something with Roy and Conner and the girls were watching them like it was one of the surface dweller's sports game, placing bets on who they thought would win. Kaldur decided that he should intervene before the boys got any angrier with each other.

"Everyone, settle down. What are you even arguing about?" He said, stepping between the boys.

Wally answered him "We're trying to figure out a movie to watch for movie night."

"Wait when did we start a movie night?" Kaldur asked, confused.

"Exactly, that's what we've been trying to tell them! Why do we have to have a movie night at all?" Roy exclaimed, while Conner nodded in agreement.

"Because, we all have to live with each other for the next six months, we should at least try to get to know each other. Movies are easier to bond over than just passing each other in the halls." Dick tried explaining their reasoning again. And just like that, they were arguing again. Kaldur decided to ask the girls what was happening since he didn't see why Roy and Conner, or Dick and Wally for that matter, were so fired up about this.

"Raquel, can you tell me what's going on?"

She looked up, surprised, "Oh, uh, they're arguing because, uh, Dick and Wally want us all to get together once a week and watch at least one movie together, to strengthen bonds or something since we all have to live together for half a year and them some for the Olympics and Roy and Conner think it's a stupid idea and don't want to be a part of it. Problem is Dick and Wally say that everyone needs to if it's going to do any good." She seemed nervous when she first started talking, but as she continued, her voice got more steady and she gained some confidence with her words.

"Uh huh, OK, I can work with that." Kaldur walked back in-between the arguing boys. "Alright, all of you, tell me what's going on, one at a time, Dick, you can start."

"Wally and I just think it would be good for us to get to know each other and a movie night would be a good way to do that. We just want them to get whelmed and watch a movie with all of us, you know once a week."

"Ok, that's not so bad; wait did you say 'whelmed'? What does that even mean?" Kaldur asked, confused.

"Don't even start; please he'll go on forever." Wally practically pleaded him.

"Alright, just going to ignore the made up word, Roy why are you two upset?" He turned towards Roy and Conner.

"We don't think we need to watch movies together weekly. We live together for crying out loud! We interact constantly all day; a movie night is just something for high schoolers who are afraid of talking to other people. I think we're all way more mature than that, it isn't necessary." Roy was surprisingly calm in his explanation considering he had almost been yelling a few minutes ago.

Conner just said, "It's a stupid idea." The bluntness of his words would have surprised Kaldur had he not known a little about Conner's personality already.

"Everybody calm down, Roy, Conner, I am sorry but Dick and Wally have a point. If we are all going to live together and make it work we need to get to know each other and doing something like a movie night is more effective than just talking in the hallways. How about we try it this week as a trial run, see if it works out, and you two can pick the movie. If it does not work, we won't do it anymore and if it does we can continue, but you do not have to come again. Does that work for everyone?" He looked between the groups of boys, they both nodded, and he glanced at the girls since they had not said anything throughout all of this, they also nodded in agreement. "Good, movies are over there." He pointed to the video cabinet and sat down on the couch next to Raquel, Suki had moved from her seat when he walked over. He decided not to think too much about it, since Roy had just come back over with a movie in hand and Conner had taken a seat on the other couch. Everyone else settled down in seats, Raquel, Kaldur, Wally and Artemis sitting on one of the two couches that were positioned in a 'v' shape in the media room, in that order. On the other couch were Dick, Zatanna, Megan and Conner. Suki had settled herself against Raquel's arm of the couch on the floor and Roy sat next to her against Conner's arm of the couch.

* * *

The movie Roy had picked put was The Avengers. Suki had to admit, she had always been curious about this movie since she wanted to see how Hollywood thought heroes lived. She really wasn't impressed, come on, the heroes didn't even try to hide their identities; they advertised them for the world to know. Plus, they didn't even seem like real heroes; their battle may have been for the sake of the world, but the villains they faced seemed really repetitive. Ignoring those facts, it was a pretty good move. The rest of the young adults seemed to think so as well. Wally was reacting to almost every scene in some way, Suki was afraid someone had hyped him up on sugar and they were going to have to deal with an overexcited runner for who knows how long. Conner actually watched the whole thing without like killing the TV, which she didn't doubt he could do considering he was a weightlifter and had to be pretty strong. Everyone seemed to completely forget things outside of the movie, neither Suki nor Roy noticed when her head dropped onto his shoulder; Raquel and Kaldur were oblivious to the fact that he had draped his arm around her, and Megan and Conner had not observed that they were nearly holding hands. When the movie ended however, they all noticed these things and started to either blush madly or start talking about the movie with the others to cover up the awkward moments that had just passed between the couples. Suki caught Artemis' eye as she jerked her head away from Roy's shoulder and saw her smirk in her direction, this just made her blush brighter.

"So, which Avenger was your favorite?" Wally asked eagerly, Dick rolled his eyes.

"You've seen this movie before haven't you, Wally?"

"Maybe, but I still like it so are any of you going to answer the question or not?"

"I liked Black Widow the best." Suki answered, sparing him from further questioning from Dick. "She's cool because she's the only girl; they're underrepresented in heroism, even here, in the real world."

"Totally, she was awesome." Raquel agreed while Megan nodded her head.

"Well, I liked Hawkeye best and my reasoning's kinda obvious so…" Artemis answered while Roy agreed.

"I preferred Thor, I could identify with him." Kaldur said.

"So did I," was Zatanna's reply.

Conner answered as well, "I liked Captain America." Suki figured it was best not to question him.

"Ironman, the guy's a genius." Dick told Wally.

"Yeah, I was hoping one of you would like him, he's my favorite, too." Wally and Dick high-fived over the space between the couches.

"You guys are such dorks," Zatanna told them.

"Yeah, whatever, it was still a good movie," Wally said, brushing the comment off.

"Oh, yeah, the action scenes were great," Raquel agreed. All the boys turned to look at her, some with raised eyebrows. "What, just because I'm a girl I can't enjoy some fighting? I'm a _judo fighter_ in case you hadn't noticed." Suki laughed; sometimes it was so easy for people, mainly boys, to forget that girls could enjoy action-filled movies.

"Don't worry, Raquel, they probably just spaced for a moment, you have to admit, you don't necessarily look like someone who enjoys fights."

"Well, neither do you," Raquel replied.

"I can accept that," Suki said to general laughter. They continued to joke around for a while until they started heading up to bed until only Roy and Suki were left in the media room.

"So…" Roy started with a sly smile.

Suki figured he was going to tease her about her head being on his shoulder when the movie ended and cut him off before he could continue. "We are never talking about the incident that happened at the end of the movie, got it?" She pointed her finger in his direction and stood up to go to sleep.

"Yes ma'am," Roy mock saluted her, laughing as she walked out of the room. 'He is such a weird guy,' she thought as she got ready to go to sleep, 'but not really in a bad way.'

* * *

**OK, I'm soooooooo sorry this is so late, I have so many excuses (i.e. school caught up to me, my uncle was in town, my mom went to the E.R. (she's fine), I joined an archery class, had writers block, and I felt sick), but that's all they are, excuses so… I'm going to try and keep the updates more regular as best as I can. I hope the longer chapter makes up for it a little bit. So, on to the reviewers:**

**princess of unicorns: So, I figured out who should fight Aqualad (obviously) but the idea of Olympians being the villains is something I think I'll try out, but maybe as a more long term thing than just one or two battles. Thanks for the review and the idea.**

**booklover1498: I'm glad you like it.**

**Angelus-v1: Thanks for the idea, I obviously used it, and I hope I did it justice, or you at least liked how it went.**

**ShadowlightStarlight: Glad you like it, I would like to put in more of them being heroes but I'm trying to put at least one hero fight in every chapter and I want to put Roy in more too, just trying to give everyone 'screen-time' so to speak, but I hope you liked how I put him in there.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: Nope, if I owned Young Justice my ideas would be going into new episodes. (P.S. It's back! No more hiatus! Yay!)**

**A/N: This is happening in the second or third week, like the first part is the second week and the other part starts the next week. I'm trying to space it out some, since it would get really repetitive if I went day by day, I would run out of ideas way too fast to do much with this. Anyway, on with the story.**

* * *

Nightwing climbed out of the police chief's office window. He had been starting to get suspicious of all the super villain sightings here and on the rest of East Coast, so he snuck into the police station and downloaded their records onto his wrist computer. Thanks to his hacking skills it had taken no more than a few minutes to get all the super villain files. He knew he couldn't look at these here in the open, especially in a spandex costume and domino mask, that would just get too much unwanted attention, regardless of the ungodly hour. With this in mind he made his way to a tall building where he could peruse the files at his leisure.

The first file he opened was on Cheetah. Apparently she had been stealing genecology and human physiology information from the Colorado Springs Science Museum which, in itself, wasn't so strange. Batman had made sure he knew as much as possible about many of the super villains and he knew that Cheetah's main goal, aside from money, was making herself human again. The odd part was that Gemini had helped her. 'What the hell? Gemini works for the Brotherhood of Evil, as in she works solely for them, what would she be doing helping Cheetah steal information that wouldn't help her or the Brotherhood at all? Unless… that information would help them as well as Cheetah, that would explain the 'why' but not the 'what'.' He scrolled down the file to see exactly what Cheetah had stolen, but found that there was no record of it, it seemed that the files at the museum were only copied by Cheetah, not stolen, and he was sure she got them since both her and Gemini had gotten away. 'Well of course they got away, they can handle a Leaguer each, what hope did the police really have?' As he thought this, though, he scrolled down more and found that the thieves had been fighting Rocket and Zatanna. 'OK, that team-up's almost as weird as Cheetah and Gemini's cooperation. As far as I know Rocket and Zatanna hate each other, and neither of them live near enough to here to show up in so little time for only a museum robbery, it's not like there are that many zeta tubes around here, not many on this side of the country in fact.'

He continued searching through the police files for anything about any other super villains, and now for other heroes, showing up on the eastern side of the country. The next case he came upon was a bank robbery. This would have been a completely normal had it not been for the fact that Emerald Torch had brought the robbers into jail and there were arrows found at the bank. 'Red arrows. Wow, I wonder whose those could be.' He thought sarcastically, the only hero archer who used red arrows had taken that as his title. 'But, that's just as weird as the museum robbery, neither hero likes the other and they both live pretty far from here. Ok, well Torch doesn't live too far, but it's still just a robbery, and this one didn't even have any super villains involved. I wonder if there are any other things like this going on around here.' The next file he found that was relevant to his search was one about Ocean Master attacking a town on the California coast. 'Aqualad and Kid Flash both showed up to fight him, I can understand Aqualad's reasoning for being there, but not the 'how', and how Kid Flash could have gotten there quick enough to do any good, but not the 'why'. None of this makes much sense, and it all just happens to be happening around Colorado Springs, where the Olympic athletes just so happen to be staying for half a year. It can't be a coincidence, the super villains tend to stay close to a place where they know they will get the attention of big time members of the Justice League or their personal enemies, not normal heroes, who aren't in the League and used to be League member's sidekicks.' As he pondered this, Nightwing looked up and saw that the sun was just rising. 'Crap, I need to get beck, I have a team training session this morning and Coach is gonna kill me if I'm late.' Nightwing jumped off of the roof he was on and onto another one and made his way back to the Training Center to get a little sleep before he had to be up again.

* * *

"Sorry, Conner, no time to talk, gotta run," Dick said as he rushed out of the kitchen with a cup of coffee in his hand. Conner just looked up as he passed and went back to his breakfast, unperturbed. Dick ran up to the gym and threw his coffee cup in the trash as he opened the door. 'How is it that I can do an eighteen hour stakeout no problem, but when it comes to waking up in the morning, I'm totally not whelmed?' He wondered as he walked up to the rest of the men's gymnastics team, who were already starting on some floor exercises. Dick went over to the few who were still warming up and started doing some stretches of his own, hoping to blend in and avoid catching Coach's attention.

"Grayson!"

'Well that worked well,' Dick thought as he turned to face Coach Johnson, "Yeah, Coach?"

"Why are you late, Grayson?" He asked. Coach called everyone on the team by their last names, Dick was just glad he hadn't changed his to Wayne; that would have been embarrassing.

"I overslept, Coach, it won't happen again."

"It better not, now get ready for practice." Coach said as he stalked away to oversee the gymnasts who were ready for practice.

Dick heard some of the guys snicker behind him and turned to give them a glare that he knew wouldn't scare most of the heroes he knew, but would probably terrify them. Dick walked over to the rings to get some practicing in before Coach yelled at him again. He was competing in both the team all-around and the individual all-around competitions, so he would have to make sure he was as prepared as possible for all the different types of gymnastics he would have to do. He was best at the rings and the horizontal bar, so he decided to start with those until the floor was more clear. He chalked his hands **(A/N: I don't really know the term) **and grabbed the rings to begin a basic routine he had been doing since he was thirteen. As he swung and flipped on the rings, he thought more about what he had learned from the police files. 'Super villains are showing up on the western side of the country instead of their usual cities or areas and heroes who mainly have no specific grudge against those villains are showing up over here quickly for issues that aren't really something they would usually show up for. Usually a hero only deals with simple crimes like a group of normal criminals robbing a bank if it's taking place in their home town; otherwise they just let the local police handle it. The only heroes that it could be considered normal to show up were Aqualad, Emerald Torch, and maybe Kid Flash, but even so, it's strange. And the villains, why would Ocean Master attack a land city and not Atlantis, and why would Cheetah and Gemini work together? It doesn't make any sense; the only pattern I can find is that heroes and villains alike are showing up places they usually don't.' Dick did a final flip, landed on the mat, and got a water bottle before heading to the horizontal bar and, later, the floor, to finish his training for the day, unless Coach decided he needed a lot more work. Lucky for him, Coach deemed his training acceptable, albeit telling him off again for being late, but Dick was free to go with the rest of the team, despite the rough start.

As he walked out of the gym, he ran into Wally, literally. Wally ended up tripping backwards for a second before Dick reached out and steadied him.

"Careful, Wallman, don't need you messing up your back or something; I think Suki owns that right." Dick laughed.

Wally joined in, "Yeah man, that chick scares me."

"Well, to be fair you were flirting with her, with a really corny pick-up line. I mean seriously man, 'Are you from Tennessee, because you're the only ten I see?'? That was just asking for her to hurt you." Dick said as they started walking back to the dorms.

"Oh, come on dude, you're supposed to be on my side!" Wally protested

"Sorry, Wally, I'm not getting in the middle of that if you piss her off again. You have to outrun her on your own." Dick stopped walking, that had given him an idea 'but that can't be true, there's no way _Wally_ is Kid Flash, just because he's a runner and has red hair and green eyes doesn't mean anything, it's probably just a coincidence.' Deciding he was still just thinking about the police files, he ran to catch up with Wally, who hadn't even noticed he had stopped because he was so absorbed in his protests about Dicks so-called 'lack of loyalty'.

"Seriously is it really that bad that I flirted with her? Most girls would take that as a compliment! 'Course Artemis didn't either, but at least she didn't physically hurt me. But, God, that girl is fine; honestly, I'd rather go after Artemis than Suki now. Not just 'cause she's pretty, which she is, but she's cool too and smart and…"

Dick tuned him out again, he was rambling about how awesome Artemis was, he couldn't help but wonder when they were just going to get together already. 'I was just being paranoid, Wally's not KF, but it couldn't hurt to look into his past to see if there's a chance, what was it Batman always said 'never make a decision unless you're sure you're 100% correct'? He'd probably tell me to look into everyone's past or at least everyone in the Young Adults dorm. He's overly paranoid, but it's better than being too trusting.' Dick decided he would look into it when he got some time alone and rejoined his conversation with Wally, who was still going on about Artemis, switching between liking her and being frustrated with her. Dick didn't think he would ever understand what happens when you like a girl.

* * *

**It's baaaack! Young Justice was amazing and I can't freak out about it enough. I got me to finish this before I thought I would. Oh, and the quote from Batman, yeah I have no idea if he ever said this, I just made something up. So next chapter is about Dick looking into people's backstories, so more information about Suki, and you know everyone else, but I'm assuming you know about them already.**

**Reviewers:**

**ShadowStarlight: Glad you liked it, and I try to answer every reviewer, I'm just happy people review. Hope you liked this one, too.**

**Booklover1498: Thank you very much, I think I'll update more with Young Justice showing again, you know, more inspiration.**

**Apocalypse owner: Glad you like them I thought so, too. **

** Please review, constructive critisism only, no flames.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I don't own this amazing show. **

Dick sighed, it had been almost five days since he had decided to dig into the pasts of his dorm mates and he had only been able to finish his search for three of them: Suki, Artemis, and Wally. He had looked up info on their pasts and cross referenced it with what he knew about his fellow heroes and made lists for each of them.

Suki Santiago: twenty-one years old, judo fighter, three siblings, both parents alive and not divorced, lives in Albuquerque, NM, Emerald Torch's city, brother paralyzed when she was twelve, not long after Emerald Torch got her ring, was in Dakota City at the same time Emerald Torch helped fight a gang there, same hair color as Emerald Torch and Zatanna, and same skin tone as Emerald Torch. As far as he could find, she had the most similarities with Emerald Torch, if any of the heroes.

Artemis Crock: twenty years old, archer, one sibling, both parents alive but separated, lives in Gotham City, Connecticut, sister, Jade Nguyen, is assassin Cheshire, dad, Lawrence Crock, is Sportsmaster, and her mom, Paula Crock, was formerly Huntress. Has the same hair and eye color as Artemis (hero), same name, and same skill (archery). She had a lot in common with Artemis, so he was more positive that he wasn't just being paranoid, at least concerning her.

Wally West: twenty years old, runner, no siblings, both parents alive and together, lives in Central City, same as Kid Flash, is close to his uncle and aunt Barry and Iris Allen, has same hair and eye color as Kid Flash, same hair color as Red Arrow as well.

Dick had managed to narrow the heroes he was looking for in regards to these three down to about two each, in Artemis' case only one, and when he looked at it the similarities and coincidences seemed almost glaringly obvious. There were so many of them, he was aware that he may be grasping at straws and be completely wrong, but he wasn't so sure. The next person he looked up was Zatanna.

Zatanna Zatara: nineteen years old, equestrian, no siblings, mother deceased and father's whereabouts unknown for past five years, same time Zatanna entered the hero world, lives in New York, NY, Zatanna's city, same hair color as Zatanna and Emerald Torch, same name as hero Zatanna. He decided he would need to ask her about the whereabouts of her father, though he was dreading bringing up that possibly painful subject with her.

He was about to move onto the next person on his list, Conner Kent, when Wally opened the door to their room and told him to get his butt down to the kitchen if he wanted anything for dinner. Dick sighed, closed his computer, and raced downstairs after Wally. 'What if I'm right and these people that I call my friends are actually people I can't stand?'

* * *

"So, has anyone got any family coming to support them in London?" Dick asked the dinner table as a whole. He had been reluctant to ask Zatanna about her father one on one, and Artemis and Suki about their families for that matter, and had decided that this was an acceptable solution.

"Dude, we've been here about a month and you're asking this now? We still have five months before the Olympics!" Wally asked as he turned to him.

Dick shrugged, "I was thinking about it now so I figured why not?"

"Alright, alright boys, enough, I'll answer. Dick my parents and siblings are coming." Suki responded, cutting Wally off from whatever his comment was going to be, Dick was grateful she did, he had wanted an answer from her almost as much as one from Z and Artemis.

"How many siblings do you have?" Megan asked her before Dick could.

"Three. An older sister, a younger sister, and a baby brother."

"You have a baby in your family? Wow that must be so interesting since you're an adult!" Megan exclaimed in surprise.

Suki laughed, "No, Megan, he's eleven; I just call him my baby brother since he's ten years younger than me."

Megan blushed, "Oh, whoops."

Suki shrugged, "It's no big deal, most people are surprised when I say baby brother. Do you have any family coming?"

"My Uncle John is coming, at least I think he's coming, he has a lot of responsibilities with his work so it's kinda unknown right now."

"Yeah, my parents and my aunt and uncle are coming to cheer me on." Wally said, finally deciding that it wasn't so bad to join in the conversation.

"My adoptive parents say they want to be there, though it's not really a big deal to me either way." Roy said, but it was obvious, to Dick at least, that it did mean a lot to him.

He decided that then was a good time to join in the conversation himself, "My adoptive family is coming." At least he knew Tim and Alfred were coming, Bruce he only hoped would come; he may have stopped being his partner/ sidekick, but Bruce was still his father figure. "What about you, Kaldur?" He asked, turning to the boy next to him.

"I believe someone is coming to cheer me on." He answered simply.

"Yeah, I think my parents and maybe a close family friend are going to be there." Raquel chimed in.

"I'm not sure." Conner answered in typical Conner fashion; shortly.

"What about you guys?" Dick asked Z and Artemis, who had stayed quiet throughout the conversation.

Artemis volunteered information first. "Mom can't come, she's in a wheelchair, I don't want my dad to come and I don't think he will and I have no idea what my sister will do or if she even cares, so, no I don't think anyone's coming."

"Artemis, that's terrible. Well, you know what, that's why we're here, to cheer you on." Raquel assured her.

"No it's fine, the only one of them that I want to be cheering me on is my mom and I know she will be; she'll just be cheering from Gotham." Artemis said this like she had long since accepted the absence of the other half of her family. Dick knew how that felt and suddenly wasn't sure he felt right suspecting her, or anyone else here for that matter, but chastised himself, reminding himself that you couldn't always be the good guy in detective work.

"Zatanna? Do you have anyone coming?" Suki asked gently, Zatanna had been staring at the table for the majority of the conversation.

"No, mom died a long time ago and I haven't seen dad in almost five years." The affect was instantaneous; all the girls went over to Z and comforted her while the guys said they were sorry and looked awkwardly at each other; none of them were really the comforting type. Dick hated himself for bringing this up, if he'd only let it be and not pried into the lives of his friends Z wouldn't be upset right now.

"Well, uh, hey Roy can you explain a little about archery to me?" Wally asked, desperately trying to change the subject and maybe take Z's mind off her dad.

"Um, sure, well, it's all about repetition, being able to do the same thing over and over again, and doing it right." Roy caught on to what he was doing and quickly responded.

"Really, that's actually pretty cool." Suki said as she sat back down.

Roy smirked, "What did you expect it to be?"

"Oh, I didn't mean it like that. I just meant that since it was one of the only sports in the Olympics where you don't _have_ to be super fit it might be boring, but it sounds cool."

"Well, maybe Roy could give you a lesson, Suki." Artemis said, looking between the two of them.

Dick saw Roy glaring at her but Suki seemed to think that was a good idea because she turned to Roy and asked, "Could you?"

Roy turned from Artemis and looked at Suki, "I guess I could, when do you want me to teach you."

"Um-" Suki started.

Artemis cut her off. "The range is completely clear right now. Nobody's using it and it's not like either of you has that much free time during the day so..."

"Well, does after dinner work then?" Suki asked Roy

"Sure," He replied and then they went onto talking to the others about their events.

"You're trying to set them up, aren't you?" Dick whispered to Artemis under the conversation of their friends.

"Of course I am. Can you blame me?" She replied and Dick laughed before going back to his dinner. He chanced a glance at Z and was glad to see that she looked to be in much better spirits; she was currently helping Megan explain to Conner why horse-back riding was a sport, he was having trouble wrapping his head around it.

* * *

"Alright, so how do you do this?" Suki asked Roy, they were at the archery range and he had just gotten his bow.

"Well, first you have to take your stance with your feet shoulder width apart. Then you knock the arrow on the string, listen for a little click before you do anything else, if it doesn't click, it isn't on the string properly. Next you grab the string with the tips of your first three fingers and bring your arm up to about face level. Then you draw the bow back until your fingertips reach the corner of your lip. Next you aim at the target with the sight, release, and let your hand fall back to your shoulder." Roy released the arrow and hit a bulls-eye.

"Sounds easy enough."

"Yeah, but this bow is pretty heavy, you might have some trouble pulling it back all the way."

"Roy, I'll be fine, it's not like I'm not strong, I'm just no weight lifter." Suki then proceeded to repeat the steps Roy had shown her. She was doing fine until it came to the draw. She couldn't pull it back further than the shoulder of the arm that was holding the bow. After continually trying to pull it back all the way she just stopped and proceeded onto the next steps and finally shot the arrow. It hit the very bottom of the target.

"I told you." Roy said from behind her.

"Ok, Ok, I overestimated my own strength. How do you do it?"

Roy chuckled, "Practice, years of practice. Here, let me help you." He turned her shoulders around so that she was facing the right way and then covered her hand that was holding the bow with his own.

'Oh God, I swear if he puts his arms around me-' Just then Roy put his other hand over hers on the string, effectively trapping her between him and the bow. Suki went rigid, 'I need to calm down, he's just helping me to shoot properly, nothing more.'

"Alright, go through the steps again, just like you did them before, but I'll help you pull it all the way back this time." Suki could only nod; she didn't trust her voice right now. Sometime during her mental freak-out/ calm-down Roy had knocked an arrow on the string so she went straight to bringing the bow up. As she pulled back she could feel the increased pressure of his hand on hers as he helped her bring it all the way back to her mouth. She aimed the arrow herself and then nodded to let him know when she was going to let go. He got the message and the arrow flew into the target, in the six point ring, not a bad shot for a second time.

"Yes!" Suki exclaimed, doing a little twirl to face Roy. She had almost managed to forget that his arms were circling her so she was still trapped between him and the bow except now she was face to face with him. The smile slowly dropped from her face and she felt herself move slightly closer and saw Roy do the same.

"Suki!" The pair jumped apart at the Dick's yell. "Your phone was ringing, we didn't know if it was important so I figured I should bring it to you."

"Uh, thanks Dick." Suki said as she regained her composure and took her phone from him. The screen said she had a call from someone named Jenny, no last name, which meant her phone had picked up a police alert. Green Lantern had helped her upgrade it to do that without making the bill for it skyrocket or making it noticeable to the untrained eye. "It was my friend from school; I should really call her back. Bye, Dick. Good night, Roy, I had a good time."

"Wait, Suki, what's that on your arm?" Dick asked as she started walking past him.

Suki looked down and saw an oval shaped bruise blossoming on her left forearm. "Um, I'm not sure."

Roy walked over to the two of them. "Here, let me see." He took her arm in his hand. "It's probably from the bow string. I should have warned you to keep your elbow away from it."

"It's no problem, Roy. I didn't even know it happened until Dick pointed it out, but I really should call my friend back, I'll see you guys later." She said as she walked out of the range, she made sure she was well out of sight of it before breaking into a run for someplace she could be hidden when she activated her ring. She finally ducked behind another building and changed, checking the alert. Apparently there was a break-in at the history museum. The police didn't know who it was, only that they weren't an ordinary criminal; they knew exactly what they were doing and what they were looking for. With that and the earlier incident in mind she set off in the direction of the museum. 'What would have happened if Dick hadn't shown up?'

* * *

"Do I even want to know what I just walked in on?" Dick asked Roy.

"I don't really know, Dick. But you seriously had to walk in then? You couldn't have been like two seconds slower?"

"Sorry, I thought you guys were just doing archery; I didn't think you'd start kissing."

"We weren't kissing!" Roy said, sounding slightly panicked.

"Whatever you say, Roy." Dick said slyly just before his phone rang. He looked at the screen and saw that it had picked up s museum robbery at the local history museum. "Um, I need to take this, see you tomorrow, Roy." He walked quickly out of the range and headed to somewhere he could change.

* * *

When Emerald Torch had reached the room where the theft was supposedly happening, she saw someone else already there. 'I seriously need to start getting to crime scenes quicker.' The hero that was already there was fighting two figures in pink with blades in place of their fingers. There was a small man backing away further into the exhibit and Torch was about to follow him when one of the pink figures cut her off and started attacking her. 'Well, so much for following the real thief.' She thought as she ducked under a swipe from pinky. She used her ring to create boxing gloves around her hands and started fighting back with punches of her own. Torch may have been able to get at a distance and create more versatile weapons, but she was a fighter and preferred close combat. Her opponent was quick and fought differently than Torch was used to. It was full of jumping and quick, jerky movements, hard to block or predict. It didn't look like the other hero was having any better luck and when Torch had to push her down with her as she ducked under another attack she realized it was Artemis.

She was about to ask her what the heck she was doing here when another figure darted past them. "Keep the Orientals busy, I'll get Penguin."

"Who the hell does he think he is?" Torch exclaimed as she jumped over her attackers arm.

"Unfortunately, Nightwing." Artemis replied bitterly as she too dodged and attack.

"Of course, but we still have a problem here."

"Duly noted. Any ideas?"

"Just one, duck!" Artemis complied and as soon as she did, Torch expanded her boxing gloves and hit the two Oriental masked fighters in the faces, knocking them back, but unfortunately not knocking them out.

"Well that worked well! Now they're mad!" Artemis yelled as she continued fighting her attacker.

"I noticed! What do you suggest we do?" Torch replied as she narrowly missed getting her left arm cut off, she lost the left sleeve of her jacket though. "Damn it! I liked that jacket!" She punched at pinky again with more ferocity as Artemis backed her opponent towards Torch's. She thought she understood what Artemis was doing; she was trying to get them together so she could tie them up together with one of her arrows, Torch didn't doubt she had a trick arrow for that. She was right, as soon as the two Orientals were back-to-back, Artemis shot some arrow that circled around them, wrapping them in the cord that followed behind it. "How long do you think that will hold them?" She asked Artemis as she relaxed out of her fighting stance.

"That cord takes a long time to cut, but even still, not very long."

"Well then, let's get in there and help Nightwing finish off the real thief quick, so we can get them all to jail." 'I can't believe I just suggested _helping Nightwing_. Oh well, it's only for justice.' She and Artemis headed inside to help Nightwing then. They shouldn't have bothered. He already had the other criminal tied up and was replacing the bird statue he had been trying to steal with the other artifacts in the Egyptian exhibit.

"This dude is our dangerous thief?" Artemis asked incredulously.

"Yeah, Penguin. He's been trying to steal this statue, and its partner, for about a year now. He wants to use them to destroy Gotham or threaten its citizens so he can take control. Most museums are warned about him when they get this for their exhibits but I guess this one just ignored it."

"Well, thanks for the current events lesson, but where's that statue's partner?" Torch asked

"They don't exhibit them at the same museums anymore. Not since Penguin got a hold of them a long time ago." Nightwing explained as he grabbed Penguin and walked out. The girls had no choice but to follow. "I'm guessing you _had_ yours bagged up to." He said when they came upon a pile of cut up ropes and the two masks.

"Yep." Torch answered dejectedly.

"We could have kept an eye on them if we hadn't gone in to help you." Artemis added heatedly.

"I didn't ask you to, hell, I didn't need any help!" Nightwing returned.

"Both of you stop it!" Torch said stepping between them before they could start fighting for real. "We caught Penguin and we need to get him to jail, we can worry about the freaky girls with knives for fingers later."

"We won't find them, they almost always get away." Nightwing said, stepping back from Artemis.

"See, then there's no reason to fight each other. Let's just get Penguin out to the cops so we can all go our separate ways already." Torch may have been trying to play peace-keeper, but that didn't mean she liked these people any more.

"Here, give him to me, I'll take him." Artemis said. Oddly enough, Nightwing complied without question. 'Weird,' Torch though as they headed out.

* * *

Nightwing and Torch walked out as Artemis went ahead of them with Penguin in tow. He glanced over at Torch and noticed the left sleeve of her jacket was missing. He looked closer and saw that she also had a bruise on that arm. 'Like the bruise Suki has. Exactly like the bruise Suki has.' "Torch, what happened to your arm?"

"What, did you forget we were just fighting two chicks with razor-sharp hands? One of them cut off my sleeve. No big deal."

"I meant the bruise, if they had gotten your arm, it would be bleeding, not bruised."

"I don't know; I don't keep track of my injuries during a battle considering it's a _battle_." Torch said, to Nightwing it sounded like she was making excuses.

'This is almost too big a coincidence to not be important. I'll have to pay more attention to Suki and Emerald Torch. At least I've narrowed her and Artemis down to one hero possibility. Now I just need to be positive I'm right, and right now, the only way to do that short of asking them directly is by unmasking them. Great like that's going to be easy.' He thought as he headed back towards the dorms after they had made sure the police had Penguin in custody and were warned about the Oriental girls trying to break him out.

* * *

**Wow, I feel so mean for almost giving you guys that kiss but I didn't want it to happen just yet. On the bright side, an extra-long chapter! Seriously this was like 8 pages in my Word. Now, how about a contest? If you can guess where I got Suki's name, just her name, not the whole character, that's mine, leave it in a review and if you're right, I'll give you digital cookies. **

**Reviewers:**

**ShadowStarlight: Glad you loved it. Hope you liked this one too.**

**booklover1498: Yay, glad you liked it. **


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: No, sorry I don't own Young Justice. (But Cartoon Network isn't doing such a good job owning it either, I mean really, another long hiatus two weeks after one that was over a hundred days, who does that?!) I also don't own the songs in here.**

**A/N: Yeah, so this is kinda a song-fic, but the songs have almost nothing to do with the plot, like they aren't related to the story I want for this chapter, I just think music would be a good way for this couple to bond.**

Wally loved to run. Whether it was in track or by dipping into the power of the speed force, running was definitely one of his favorite pastimes. That probably had something to do with why he never complained when he had to come in to train early or for extra-long, this was fun, not work, to him at least. Granted there were other things he liked more, like hanging out with his friends and sometimes eating, depending on the food.

There was another reason why he was running laps around and around the track at a normal person's pace though. Since he was one of the youngest runners competing in track and field, the coach had told him to do some endurance running in his spare time. Had Wally been able to, he would have told his coach that he could run from Central City to California without stopping, keeping at a fairly constant pace, albeit it not his fastest pace, and barely having to catch his breath after, but that would totally ruin the whole 'secret identity' thing he had going on. So Wally ran, and ran, and ran; it wasn't that bad, it gave him time to think. Or, you know, listen to music for at least an hour on end.

_You know the bed feels warmer,_

_sleeping here alone._

_You know I dream in color,_

_and do the things I want._

_Think you got the best of me,_

_think you've had the last laugh._

_Bet you think that everything good is gone._

_Think you left me broken down,_

_think that I'd come running back._

_Baby, you don't know me 'cause you're dead wrong_

He decided to stop running when "Stronger" came on his shuffle. To be fair, he had been running for about an hour, which was about as long as the other long distance runners ran at a time. As he went over to the bench where he had his water bottle and a towel, he started singing along with the chorus on his iPod.

_"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger._

_Stand a little taller,_

_doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone._

_What doesn't kill you makes a fighter,_

_footsteps even lighter._

_Doesn't mean I'm over 'cause you're gone._

_What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, stronger,_

_just me, myself, and I._

_What doesn't kill you makes you stronger._

_Stand a little taller,_

_doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone."_

After he finished the last word of the chorus, he heard someone behind him clapping. He turned around quickly to see who had witnessed his embarrassing moment; he wasn't the best singer. It was Artemis. Of course it was Artemis.

He took out his headphones and let them hang around his neck. "How much of that did you hear?"

She shrugged, "Enough. But, by the way, you need to work on your high notes." He could see her mouth twitching, just barely holding back a laugh.

He decided to ignore her comment about his singing, it could have been a lot worse; she was actually being nice about it. "What are you doing here anyway?" He asked, simply curious.

She shrugged again, "Maybe I was just looking to find some good-looking runners. Too bad I found you instead." She smiled wickedly after that.

Wally put his hand over his heart in mock-hurt. "Wow, cutting deep, Arty."

"Don't call me Arty." She snapped automatically. He laughed inwardly, the only reason he called her that was because it annoyed her. "So, I'm guessing you listen to a lot of Kelly Clarkson."

He raised an eyebrow at her, "Why would you think that?"

She pointed to his headphones, "Because "Mr. Know-It-All" just came on."

Wally blushed. "So she came on twice in a row, is that a problem?" He asked challengingly; he was very protective over his favorite musical artists.

"Not really, but you must get bored just listening to her all the time."

"Hey, I listen to other people besides her."

"Oh, are they all female pop-singers? Like Katy Perry and Christina Aguilera?"

"No…" He said in a way that totally said he was lying.

"Okay, not that there's anything wrong with any of them, I happen to love most of their music, but you should really listen to more of a variety." She started dragging him away from the track.

"Wait, where are we going?" He protested, though he continued to let her drag him along.

She looked back and gave him another wicked smile, "To try some variety, of course." 'Well, that wasn't vague at all.' He thought as she continued to drag him towards the Young Adult dorm.

* * *

_I don't remember the moment I tried to forget_

_I lost myself._

_It is better not said._

_Now I'm closer to the edge._

_It was a thousand to one and a million to two._

_Time to go down in flames and I'm taking you._

_Closer to the edge._

_No I'm not saying_

_I'm sorry._

_One day, maybe we'll meet again._

_No I'm not saying_

_I'm sorry._

_One day, maybe we'll meet again._

_No, no, no, no._

_Can you imagine a time when the truth ran free?_

_The birth of a sun,_

_the death of a dream._

_Closer to the edge._

_This never ending story_

_Paid for with pride and faith._

_We all fall short of glory_

_Lost in our fate._

_No I'm not saying_

_I'm sorry._

_One day, maybe we'll meet again._

_No I'm not saying_

_I'm sorry._

_One day, maybe we'll meet again._

_No, no, no, no._

_No, no, no, no._

_I will never forget._

_No, no._

_I will never regret._

_No, no._

_I will live my life._

_No, no, no, no._

_I will never forget._

_No, no._

_I will never regret_

_No, no._

_I will live my life._

_No, I'm not saying_

_I'm sorry._

_One day, maybe we'll meet again._

_No, I'm not saying_

_I'm sorry._

_One day, maybe we'll meet again._

_No, no, no, no._

_Closer to the edge._

_Closer to the edge._

_Closer to the edge._

_Closer to the edge._

_No, no, no, no._

_Closer to the edge._

"So what song was that again?" Wally asked as the lyrics stopped and the music faded out.

"Closer to the Edge by 30 Seconds to Mars." Artemis replied. It was clear to Wally that she was waiting for his reaction.

To tell the truth, hard rock wasn't really his kind of music, but he had enjoyed that song, to an extent. "Well, it was pretty good, just a little too, um, much for me."

Artemis nodded like she had been expecting that. "Yeah, they aren't the calmest songs, but I really love them. Probably has something to do with the fact that I'm not the most calm or non-violent girl." She laughed, man Wally loved her laugh, wait did her seriously just think that?! He mentally shrugged, he had told basically the same thing to Dick already; he was just freaking out because she was in front of him this time; that made it all the more real.

"I didn't hear anything about violence in that song." He was confused, what did her possibly violent nature have to do with liking that band?

"Maybe not that song, but one of their songs is literally called "This is War", it's also one of my favorites, though "Closer to the Edge" is still my number one favorite."

"Uh huh, yeah, definitely too much for me." Wally laughed a little nervously; what had he gotten himself into by liking this girl?

"Well, how about something by Linkin Park? They're much less, um…?"

"Screamo-music- like?" He supplied. She laughed again but nodded and unlocked her iPod to put on a new song. Wally glanced at it to see what song it was and noticed the time. "Oh, shit!" He exclaimed.

"What's wrong?" She asked, surprised.

"The guys and I were going to hang out today. I was supposed to meet them after I finished training, I need to go. I'm sorry, Artemis, rain check?"

"Yeah, no problem, have fun." Wally wasn't sure, but he thought she had said this dejectedly and considered ditching the guys to hang out with her, but he had planned it already, he couldn't just leave them, that would be really rude. He waved as he left her room and sprinted down to the kitchen where they had decided to meet.

"Finally, what took you so long, Wally?" Dick said as soon as he got through the door.

"I was hanging out with Artemis and we lost track of time."

"Oh, so you finally took some action?" Roy asked with a smirk.

"Not like that! We were just listening to music. Unlike when you and Suki lost track of time." He turned it back on Roy.

"We didn't do anything!" Roy defended himself.

"Sure you didn't." Wally drawled.

"Yeah, Dick said something about you guys kissing. That doesn't sound like nothing to me." Conner added, he always seemed more comfortable when it was just guys around, Wally figured girls made him nervous or something.

"We didn't kiss! Dick, you walked in before anything happened, not that anything was going to happen in the first place, but still, _nothing happened._" Roy stressed.

"Ok, nothing happened, that doesn't mean that you didn't want it to." Dick said.

Roy was about to respond when Kaldur, ever the peace-maker, stepped in, "Why don't we all just let whatever did or didn't happen be and go and have some fun?" The guys all nodded and they headed out to the town, though they still had to actually plan where they were going, 'Oh well,' Wally though, 'we'll figure it out.'

* * *

Artemis walked into the media room to see a magazine held in front of the face of whoever was currently slouched down with their head below the back of the couch. Artemis laughed, "What are you doing?"

The person sat up and moved the magazine down, revealing Suki's face. "Hiding from Roy."

"Why?" Artemis said as she sat down next to her.

"Because, thanks to you, we almost kissed last night."

Artemis smiled before she registered the word usage. "Wait, 'almost'? What happened?"

"Dick walked in with my phone. Seriously, if he had walked in just a few seconds later, then I wouldn't be hiding on the couch." Artemis raised an eyebrow, so Suki elaborated. "I wouldn't be afraid to talk to Roy because I would know if he was going to kiss me or if I was just imagining it."

"Oh." Artemis nodded in understanding.

"Yeah, so what have you been up to today?"

"I hung out with Wally for a while."

"Oh and how did that go?" Suki asked teasingly

"He left."

Suki sighed, "I'm sorry Artemis. Did he say why he left at least?"

"Yeah, something about having promised to hang out with the guys today, which means you probably don't need to hide from Roy anymore, though I don't see why you were in the first place."

"Oh no, don't turn this back around on me. We were talking about you and I already gave you my reasoning for hiding from Roy. So, what did you and Wally do?"

"We just listened to music, for like five minutes tops, I only played one song when he realized he had to go."

"Artemis, you don't need to defend yourself." Suki assured her. "I don't think he would have left so willingly if you guys had done anything that was more interesting that listening to music. Did he say anything before he left?"

"Yeah, he asked if he could take a rain check and that he was sorry. What's with the sudden interest in my love life anyway?"

"What, you can meddle in my love life but I can't take an interest in yours? You are quite the hypocrite, my friend." Suki teased.

"Oh shut up. It's not like I'm upset, I actually appreciate that you care at all, it's just kind of depressing since there really is no love life for you to be caring about." Artemis said dejectedly.

"Yeah, I know the feeling." Suki replied.

Artemis just shook her head, "At least you almost had a moment with Roy. Wally and I were practically just hanging out as friends."

"Better than avoiding each other."

"Okay,true, but that's your own fault. If you would just man up and talk to him, there wouldn't be a problem."

"I'm not a man but, fine I see what you mean." They lapsed into a comfortable silence until Suki gave a soft laugh.

"What?" Artemis asked cautiously.

"Just, and I'm not trying to be mean at all here, but I never would have thought _you_ would fall for Wally. You guys are like polar opposites."

Artemis snorted, not even remotely offended by Suki's words, she had had similar thoughts herself. "Yeah, well what about your liking Roy? Don't most of the normal girls go for the football players, if they go for jocks at all, in high school and college?" She asked teasingly.

"Yeah, because I totally look like the kind of girl who would fall head over heels for a high school football player." Suki said sarcastically as she gestured to her clothes. Artemis looked, she hadn't noticed before, but Suki _definitely_ didn't look like that kind of girl; she had black platform boots, but not very high ones, ripped skinny jeans, and a ripped black t-shirt with a bright green camisole showing underneath. "Besides, you basically just said you weren't a normal girl since you didn't fall for the typical jock." She added, almost as an afterthought.

"I'm not a normal girl, I completely accept that. Don't you know? 'Normal is not something to aspire to-"

"'-it's something to get away from.' Jodie Foster, right?" Suki finished.

"Yeah, I didn't know you knew that quote."

Suki shrugged, "I like those kinds of quotes, the kind that don't give some super meaningful life lesson in a cryptic way, they just say it straight out and to the point, and they're kinda fun, too."

Artemis laughed, "See, this is why we're friends. You get the weirdness that is me."

Suki joined her laughter, "And you understand all of my weirdness."

* * *

Wally sighed, he was losing. The guys had finally decided to go bowling and Wally apparently sucked, at least compared to his friends. Both Roy and Dick had awesome aim and had only gotten a gutter ball maybe three times between them, and even Wally would admit that two were flukes. Then there were Conner and Kaldur, they were both using sixteen pound bowling balls; the heaviest offered and they were both doing really well with them. And Wally, who was using a twelve pound ball and had put the bumpers up halfway through the game because he had gotten almost four gutter balls and was sick of it. He felt so…_normal_ around his friends, even though he knew he was in no way normal. At least, part of who he was wasn't normal; Wally West on the other hand, was just a runner with a habit of flirting.

'I'm nothing special, at least not compared to my friends. Here I'm just the funny guy they enjoy hanging out with, which is great and all, but that's not all I am. When I'm Kid Flash, I'm different than almost everybody, excluding Uncle Barry and it feels great. I don't have to hold back who I am, I can cut loose with all I've got, all my speed and all my skill. I get to take out the bad guys and protect the innocents; that's what I love about it. Of course, I wish it wasn't a secret, that I could be like that with someone outside my family, just be all of who I am with my friends.' He glanced at the others, who were totally focused on the game and just on hanging out in general, as if they had nothing else in the world to worry about, not even the Olympics. He wished he could do that, tune out the hero part of his life and just enjoy being Wally West, not worry about being Kid Flash. 'But I _am_ a hero, that's a part of my life; I can't just get rid of it. Besides, how many people can say that they save lives and fight villains? In spite of the secrets and the issues with it, I wouldn't have my life any other way.' With that decided in his mind, Wally stood up and set about trying to improve his score, without any mental distractions.

* * *

**Sorry, again, that this took so long. I blame the new hiatus. It stole my creativity. And as to my attempt at a contest last chapter: I got the name Suki from Avatar the Last Airbender, she was one of my favorite characters, plus I loved her name.**

**On to the reviewers:**

**ShadowStarlight: They all dislike each other (they really only ****_hate_**** one or two of the others) because, as heroes, they never really worked together, and since Young Justice didn't happen in this fic, they never got close and got to know each other so they distrust each other. Also the times they have worked together (before the fic, but I might go into detail on them later, I haven't decided yet) it didn't turn out the best and they kinda thought the other or others were rude or stuck up or something similar which eventually evolved into the way they feel about each other now. If that makes any sense.**

**Superbubbles: I'm a Spitfire fan too, I had actually thought about doing this chapter as a Spitfire one before you reviewed and before I started the chapter. You helped me make the decision and start writing, so thanks and I hope you liked it.**

**Booklover1498: I haven't totally figured out how he will tell them he knows who they are ****_when he knows_**** but I think he will confront them and not try to trick them, just tell them he knows, but not how. They would probably only know his ID if he feels he can trust them when he figures out who they are. I'm glad you liked it though.**

**Angelus-v1: Thanks, I didn't think I was any good at fight scenes, and it's fun writing Nightwing.**

**Tigrun: Thank you.**

**One last thing, since there is a hiatus, I'm having some trouble coming up with ideas, so if you have anything you really want, like a certain pairing or a certain person fighting, I would love to hear it, it would probably help me write the next chapter.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I wish I owned Young Justice, but my luck doesn't work like that, so I own nothing.**

**A/N: Hey, I'm so sorry this is so late, but I'll let you read the story before I explain.**

"Hey, Zee." Zatanna looked up when she heard her name to see Dick standing in the doorway to her room.

"Oh, h-hey, Dick, what's up?" She mentally cursed herself, she needed to get over this shyness when she's around Dick, it wasn't helping anything. 'At least I can get a full sentence out around him now, though, that's an improvement.' She thought.

"It's our turn to go get the groceries." Zatanna nodded and followed him down to the kitchen/dining room, where most of the others were. They had a system in the Young Adults dorm, every week, two of them would go on a grocery run since they ran out really quickly; they were given a weekly budget for groceries from Brown. "Ok, we're going on a grocery run, anyone have any requests?" Dick said when they walked in. They had a list already, but it was always easier to check what people wanted too instead of finding out when they got back or getting texts while they were there with what everyone wanted.

"I need some chicken for dinner tonight." Megan said from her position at the counter, she was usually the one who cooked, she was better than pretty much everyone else, though they kept an eye on her whenever she decided to bake, Wally was the only one who would eat burned cookies.

"I think we're out of fruit." Kaldur added from where he was reading at the table. Everyone else there gave negative responses.

"Coffee." Suki called from the couch in the media room.

Zatanna and Dick walked in and Zatanna glanced at her, she was typing on her laptop and she had a huge book opened next to her. Zatanna walked over while Dick wrote down the other's requests. "Whatcha doin'?" She asked.

Suki sighed, "Trying to make sure I don't fail out of my first year of law school before the year even finishes."

"I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that's why you need the coffee?" Zatanna said, glancing at the paper Suki was writing; she hardly understood any of it, but she didn't speak lawyer.

"Yeah, you try to balance Olympic training with law school, I barely get any sleep as it is, coffee would be greatly appreciated."

"What do you mean, you barely get any sleep? You can't possibly have that much work." Dick said as he joined the conversation.

Suki rubbed her temples, "Dick, you're just going to have to take my word for it, I'm not up for explaining everything to you right now, I really need to finish this."

"But, why-"

"No problem, Suki, we'll get the coffee. Let's go, Dick" Zatanna cut Dick off. She patted Suki's shoulder before grabbing Dick, saving Suki from further interrogation, and setting out on the walk to the store. Before they walked out the door, Dick grabbed a little push cart; Zatanna raised an eyebrow at him.

"What? If you want to carry everything back here, be my guest, but I like prefer not to have sore arms, it's much more asterous." And he walked out the door.

Zatanna just rolled her eyes, he had a good point and most everyone had long since stopped trying to figure out what he meant when he used a word that wasn't really a word, but she was still interested. This one was new to her, "'asterous' what's that one mean?"

Dick turned back to her with a grin on his face, "It's the opposite of disaster, instead of meaning bad things are happening, it means good things are."

Zatanna shrugged, "Sure, why not," she tried to appear nonchalant, of course that got her thinking, "so would chalant be the opposite of nonchalant? Like, it would mean caring instead of not caring."

"Zee, you're a genius. I can't believe I hadn't already thought of that." Zatanna smiled with his praise, of course, in the back of her mind somewhere, she knew the others wouldn't be happy that he had a new word to confuse them with, but in her opinion it was worth it. She looked up, they were at the store.

"Why don't we make this more fun?" She asked.

"How so?" Dick turned to look at her. She took the shopping list out of his hands and tore it in half, ignoring his shocked expression and exclamation about how hard he had worked to make it look like a masterpiece of writing. "Whoever finishes their half of the list first has to push that cart thing back with all the groceries and carry the other piggyback."

Dick smirked, "Well, I hope you can carry me, Zee."

"Don't get so cocky, Grayson, I'm not one to give up without a fight." She said putting her hands on her hips.

"Alright then, on go, one, two, three, go!" both her and Dick sprinted off to the separate areas of the store to finish their list.

Zatanna was proud to say that she only considered finishing her list by magic for three seconds, at max. She was getting more used to not using magic around people when she wasn't in costume. She had had to stop herself so many times those first two weeks. As she set off down the frozen isle to get Megan's chicken she felt her phone vibrate. She had used magic to help it pick up on police signals and this was one of those times. 'Now? Really? This couldn't happen in like an hour? I wish there were other heroes here, I don't want to have to carry Dick all the way back.' She was pretty sure the whole incident with Rocket was a one-time thing since she hadn't seen anything to the contrary so she ran out of the store and changed, setting off in the direction of the crime, apparently a hostage situation with Captain Cold and they suspected two others, completely unaware that her shopping partner was heading in the same direction, for the same, and other, reasons.

* * *

'Captain Cold. Central City ice villain and one of Flash's arch-enemies. What the hell is he doing in Colorado Springs?!' Nightwing thought as he made his way to the institute. According to his police scanner, Captain Cold was holding one of their leading scientists in technology, a Dr. Bennett, and a few students hostage. He just didn't get what Cold had to gain from this, money maybe, but it seemed like too much of a hassle to only be about money when he could just try and rob a bank. But he didn't have any more time to ponder Cold's possible motives; he had just reached the institute.

"Nightwing! Wow, we must have a popular town here." The police chief said when he walked past. Of course it caught his attention.

"What do you mean?" He turned back to the chief.

"Well, Zatanna got here just before you did and went in to deal with Cold and his kids."

Nightwing didn't have a chance to question the chief about Zatanna; there were more pressing matters at hand. "His _kids_? As in Kid Kold and Ice Kate? All three of them are here?"

"That's right. In fact, Zatanna could probably use your help in there." The chief was looking at him weird. Nightwing realized he had gone off into space thinking about all this.

"Right, I'm on it. Make sure your men are ready to get the hostages out of danger, they might not be coming out with Cold's permission." He called as he ran into the building.

* * *

He stepped right into the middle of a battle. Zatanna was fighting Ice Kate and Kid Kold at the same time. Captain Cold was guarding the hostages while one was at the computer, downloading something it appeared.

"Take Ice Kate, I've got Kid Kold." Nightwing called to Zatanna as he ran at Kid with a spin kick aimed at his jaw, it ended up connecting with his arm as he blocked it. Nightwing knew that if one of them attacked Captain Cold while his kids were still up and fighting one or more of the hostages would probably die and icy cold death. Zatanna didn't seem too pleased that he was there, but complied with his idea all the same.

Nightwing pulled out his eskrima sticks and lunged at Kid. Kid shot a beam of ice at him, forcing him to change tactics and dodge. He was so used to fighting Mr. Freeze; he didn't really know the best way to fight Kid Kold. He usually just aimed any blow that could break glass at his head and avoid the ice beams. 'Well, this isn't that different, I just need to focus on knocking him out instead of breaking glass.'

Kid came at him again and he used his acrobatic skills to jump over him and landed a kick on his back, sending Kid tripping forward and him to the other side of the room. He chanced a glance at Zatanna to see how she was doing at keeping Ice Kate occupied and away from the hostages and was met with a fist ot the gut in his moment of distraction.

"Not so good away from Bats, are you?" Kid taunted him.

"You wouldn't say that without your gun." He replied.

"I can fight you without this." Kid said cockily, he threw it away from them.

Nightwing smirked; that was all he needed. He straightened up and lashed out with his eskrima sticks. Kid didn't even stand a chance. Now able to check out the rest of the battle without getting punched, he looked over at Zatanna and Ice Kate. Zatanna was doing pretty well, she was shooting fire at Ice Kate's stream of ice, but she was too fast for Zatanna to actually stop her from moving.

Nightwing decided to change that. He threw a few of the marbles he always kept with him in her path, knowing they would at least trip her up, and turned to Captain Cold.

"It's over, Cold, you can't beat us both."

"Ah, but I don't need to, young hero, I've got what I need." With the flash drive in his hand, he gestured to the computer which had the words 'File Transfer Successful' right across the center. Nightwing attacked, trusting Zatanna to get the hostages out. Cold just laughed and dodged his attack. "Do you really think you can beat me with speed, young hero, I fight _the Flash_, fighting speed is my specialty."

Nightwing knew he was right, he would have to rely on technique to beat Cold, not speed or agility. 'How do the Flashes _do_ this?' He wondered while still debating his options. He decided to do the same thing he had with Kid Kold, use his acrobatic skills. Cold had backed up so much in dodging that Nightwing was now next to one of the desks. He jumped up onto it and then jumped again, this time spinning and successfully kicking Cold in the jaw. The villain staggered with the blow, hitting his head on the wall behind him and falling, unconscious.

After again checking that Zatanna had taken out Ice Kate and gotten the hostages to safety, Nightwing took the flash drive from Cold's pocket and went to check the computer to find out what the files were. He furrowed his brow at what he found. The files were all about Dr. Bennett's research in automatons. 'Why would Cold be after this?' he pondered while finishing his inspection of the files. To his dismay he found that the files hand been uploaded to not one, but two places. The first was Cold's flash drive which had now had in his belt, but he couldn't identify the other, it was outside the computer. In fact it looked like it had been e-mailed to the other place, but it had been done so that he couldn't track it. 'Damn, not good,' was all he could think as he gathered up Captain Cold and Kid.

* * *

Nightwing handed the Cold family to the cops with a disgusted look on his face; he couldn't believe he'd let Cold get that information to another location, so even though they were caught, and they would break out anyway, they still managed to get the information they were here for in the first place.

"Wow, could you be any more chalant about the hostages?" Zatanna said in an annoyed voice as she came over to him. He had completely ignored the hostages in favor of taking the criminals to the police. He was about to tell her that when he registered exactly what she'd said.

Behind his mask, his eyes widened, "Did you just say 'chalant'?" He asked, trying to keep his cool while slightly freaking out on the inside.

"Yeah, you should try expanding your vocabulary, Nightwing." She said before creating her disk and flying away.

Nightwing ran. At her rate she would reach the grocery store before him, that is if she was indeed heading there. He couldn't risk being too far behind her in any case, though the possibility that hero Zatanna and Olympian Zatanna were the same person definitely sped him up.

* * *

"I won!" Zatanna called as he found her at the register. She'd just gotten back and grabbed as many of her items as she could before using magic to get the last two or three. In her defense she'd been gone for a pretty long time, she had fully expected to lose.

"Yep, dang it, I hope you aren't heavy, Z." Dick remarked before falling into line behind her.

"Don't worry, I'm not, but I'm going to have fun with this." She smirked.

* * *

"Hey we're back with the groceries!" Dick called as they walked through the kitchen door. The he changed his voice to one like a child announcing what they did at school. "And guess what, I learned a new word!"

Everyone groaned; Zatanna smiled sheepishly.

* * *

**Ok, wow I really have no excuse, just had writer's block I guess. I'm not going to guarantee that I'll update ****_really_**** soon because I just don't know if I will, but I will guarantee that I won't give up on this story. So, no matter how long it takes me to update, just know that I will, I refuse to put this on hiatus.**

**Reviewers:**

**Superbubbles: Wow, that's a lot of ships; well this one is kinda chalant. I think next I'm going to do Supermatian since I feel like I'm ignoring them and then probably Aquarocket, but there will definitely be more of the other ships, too. I might do a traught friendship just because I love them like that and I also don't think Wally would be jelly of an 18/19 year old talking to Arty.**

**Numbah435spiritsong: Oh, thank you so much. Lol, yeah me too, I love kick-butt girls in books or TV or anything. Thanks, I really do like some hard rock, but they're definitely one of my favorites. Again, thanks (I kinda feel like I should have said that for everything in here though), and I hope you liked this one.**

**Booklover1498: Thanks, hope you like this one too.**

**ShadowlightStarlight: No problem, I'm glad to respond to any questions. Thanks, glad you liked it.**

**Tigrun: It's not selfish at all, I like writing them, though I hope I did the ship justice, I just love that they're both kinda little trolls, I really want to do more of that in future chapters.**

**Believe-daydream-Fly529: Thanks, that would be really interesting to write.**

**Wow, almost everyone who reviewed wanted something with chalant. How can I argue with that? So if you want a particular ship or a specific villain/hero fighting, let me know and I'll see if I can use it for the story.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: I don't own.**

* * *

"Conner can you help me with this?" Megan called as she walked through the kitchen door. Conner got up from his seat at the island and took the box that was about to fall out of her hands. "Thanks." Megan said when she sat the other box down on the island.

"What's in these?" Conner asked.

"It's all the tack for the horses that needs cleaning. I thought I would do it over here so I could have something in the background to distract me from the complete boredom." Megan replied.

"Oh, okay." Conner said before walking into the media room. Megan grabbed one of the boxes and the cleaning supplies and followed him.

"Do you mind if I clean them in here?" She asked timidly, afraid that he would say no. He just shrugged and she happily took it as a yes. She sat down on the couch opposite him, put in her headphones and started cleaning her horse's bridle. It was a few minutes before she noticed that the TV wasn't on. 'Conner must be doing something else.' She thought. She looked up to see what he was doing and saw that he _was_ in fact watching it. Though what he was watching she wasn't sure. The screen was blank, but he was staring at it intently. "Um, Conner, do you want me to turn that on?" She asked, gesturing to the TV.

"You can't, it's not working." Conner replied without looking away from the screen.

"What?"

"Yeah, it just turned off."

Megan got up to try and turn the TV on manually and found he was right, the TV wasn't turning on. She walked over to the light switch to see if that worked. She had left the lights off since the window had been letting in more than enough light when she had started. "Okay, the lights aren't working either. I guess the power's out."

"Yup, and training's cancelled too. No sense trying to train during a storm I guess." Suki said as she walked into the media room.

"Wait, what storm?" Conner asked. Suki just pointed out the window at the rapidly darkening sky.

"That answer your question?" Conner didn't reply, just turned back to the black TV screen. "Okay then. Megan, help me get everybody down here, let's do something fun with our day off."

"What did you have in mind?" Megan laughed as Suki dragged her off to the boy's rooms.

"Truth or dare." She answered as she grabbed one of the laundry baskets and then knocked on Dick and Wally's door. "Come down to the media room!" She called through before they could open it.

"What's the basket for?" Megan asked as Suki did the same with Roy and Kaldur's door and dragged her towards their rooms.

"You'll see" Suki replied with a wicked grin over her shoulder.

Megan shook her head, "Do you _try _to be terrifying or does it come naturally?"

"Little bit of both." Suki said before going about spreading the messages through the girl's rooms.

* * *

"Okay, what on earth is going on?" Zatanna asked once everyone had gathered in the media room.

"We are going to play truth or dare." Suki replied, setting the laundry basket down on the floor between the two couches.

Some of them, like Dick and Wally, smiled and quickly made about settling on the couches. Others, like Kaldur, Raquel and Conner simply decided to humor her. The scariest reaction was from Zatanna and Artemis who both grinned like they were coming up with plans for the embarrassment of the others. Megan had already accepted that she couldn't change Suki mind, being dragged through the building would do that to a person. And then there was Roy.

"No." He said before turning to leave and presumably go back to his room.

"What, are you _scared_, Roy?" Artemis taunted, that frightening grin never leaving her face.

"No, I just don't want to play." He said, his back still facing them.

"I think we've got ourselves a chicken, Zee." Artemis continued.

Roy turned around and sat next to Suki. "Fine, whatever."

"Okay then," Suki said, "let's get started. Here are the rules: no denying a truth, no dares involving leaving the building since it's storming, and finally, if you want to skip a dare, you have to drop one article of clothing into the laundry basket."

"Wait, _that's_ what you're planning on using the laundry basket for?!" Megan exclaimed.

Suki shrugged, "Don't look so scandalized, it's not as bad as you're thinking. Once you've put in four pieces of clothing then you can't skip any more dares, you can't skip two in a row, and an article of clothing could be something like your shoe or a hair tie, it doesn't need to be major. It's just a rule to encourage people to not skip dares."

Megan still looked apprehensive but nodded anyway.

"Come on let's get started already!" Wally said impatiently.

Raquel laughed, "If you're so anxious." She teased. "Zatanna, truth or dare?"

"Dare."

"Um, I dare you to touch your nose with your tongue, and if you can't do it, touch someone else's nose."

"Wow, Raquel, creative." Zatanna said sarcastically before trying to touch her tongue to her nose. She fell backwards into the couch with her face towards the ceiling before she conceded. "Okay, okay, I give. Whose nose do I have to touch?"

"Kaldur." she replied through her laughter. Zatanna did so quickly with an apologetic look in Kaldur's direction.

"My turn. Conner, truth or dare?"

"Uh, truth I guess."

"Okay, what was the most embarrassing thing you've ever done in school?"

"I fell down the bleachers during a football game and landed in front of the cheerleaders." He answered stoically, like the embarrassment didn't bother him in the least. "Wally, truth or dare?"

"Dare."

"I dare you to hug the next person to say 'way' and refuse to let go." Conner said.

"So, I don't do my dare until someone says that?" Wally asked, confused. Conner nodded. "Alright then, you guys had better be careful what you say!" he said with a smile. "Megan, truth or dare?"

"Truth."

"What is the meanest thing you have ever done in your life?"

"Um, well, once I tricked my friend into thinking that the Martians were invading at the school Halloween party and he freaked out screaming about an alien invasion." She said with a slight blush.

"Wow Megan, didn't know you had a dark side. How did you pull that off?" Dick asked with wide eyes.

"A couple of my friends and I dressed up like aliens and pretended to kidnap another of our friends and made sure he saw. It was payback because he had already been trying to convince people that aliens were invading as a Halloween prank. He ran into the gym, confessed that he had been pranking everyone before and then said that there were real aliens outside. It was actually really funny. Now, I think it's my turn so, Dick, truth or dare?"

"I'm feeling brave, so dare."

"I dare you to speak in Shakespearean English for the next two rounds."

"As the lady wishes." Dick replied with a smirk. "Kaldur, would thou prefer me to issue a truth or a dare upon thee?" He continued in the same fashion, even adding an English accent.

Kaldur laughed, "Um, assuming I can understand what you tell me to do, dare."

"Ay, I dare ye to take the challenge of the cinnamon."

"The Cinnamon Challenge?" Kaldur clarified. Dick nodded. "Yeah, no way." Kaldur took off his jacket and threw it in the laundry basket. Just as he dropped in it he was attacked by Wally wrapping his arms tightly around his waist.

"Art thou afraid of the cinnamon or of the knave perhaps?" Dick asked with his classic smirk still in place.

"I just have a very sensitive throat and nose so I don't want to risk the cinnamon." Kaldur said honestly. "As for Wally, I'm just uncomfortable. So, Wally would you get off of me?"

"Nope, I must obey my dare." Wally said, only squeezing Kaldur tighter.

Kaldur started trying to pry him off all the while shooting glares at Conner who was actually laughing. Finally he managed to get Wally off to the chorus of everyone else's laughter. "Suki, truth or dare?" He asked in the most dignified way he could considering his past predicament.

"Um, truth."

"What are you the most afraid of?"

Suki sighed in relief; Kaldur had let her off easy. "Failing I guess. Like not doing what I set out to do, no the grade part, though that would suck too. I've already failed the people I care about once and I don't want to do it again. Artemis, truth or dare?"

"Dare."

"I dare you to see how many ice cubes you can fit in your mouth at one time."

"Okay, simple enough." Artemis said as she walked into the kitchen and got the ice tray. "Someone else should probably count since I won't be able to talk soon."

"Alright go." Suki nodded. Artemis put the first few ice cubes in her mouth easily, but she ran into some trouble at four.

"Come on Arty, four is pathetic; you can do better than that!" Wally encouraged her. She glared at him but put another ice cube in her mouth nonetheless.

At six she gave up. "God that's so cold!" She said as she spit them out into a cup.

"And you thought it was simple." Suki laughed at her.

"You planned that didn't you?"

"Well, it _is_ truth or dare, so yeah I planned it."

"I swear you are secretly evil." Artemis said shaking her head. Suki laughed, she was secretly something but it sure wasn't evil. "Okay, Roy, truth or dare."

"Dare, I guess." Roy said, still uncaring about the game, though he had been laughing along with everyone.

"I dare you to," Artemis said with a grin in Suki's direction. Her eyes widened, she wouldn't, "kiss Suki."

She would.

Suki, who was glaring at Artemis, was completely unaware of Roy moving until it was too late. He kissed her, nothing big, just a sweet kiss.

He smiled at her when he pulled away, "I should have done that at the archery range."

Suki, who was still a little shocked, could only nod, though she couldn't stop the smile that was forming on her face too.

"Took you guys long enough." Zatanna said with a wry smile.

"What are you talking about?" Roy asked.

"Come on, even I was getting impatient for you two to do _something_." Conner added.

"I was ready to lock you in a closet until something happened." Dick said almost wickedly. Suki was, rightfully in her mind, really scared of him sometimes.

"Fine, we aren't good at the whole romance thing, whatever, can we move on now?" Suki said, still blushing.

Roy rolled his eyes but continued the game anyway, "Raquel, truth or dare?"

"Truth."

"If you could be invisible for a day what would you do?"

"Well, first I would probably skip training," Raquel started.

"What?! You're the one who made me go to training with you! And early in the morning too!" Suki exclaimed indignantly.

"That doesn't mean I don't want a break sometimes. Okay, um other than that I would probably just hang around everyone, see what they do when I'm not around, if I affect what happens in any way that is."

"Okay, remind me to never let you become invisible." Megan laughed.

"So you do things you don't want me to know about when I'm not around do you, Meg?" Raquel teased.

"No, I just think your spying on all of us would be creepy, I would never stop looking over my shoulder if you disappeared."

"True, but I'm not changing my decision. You'll just have to do your best to make sure I never get in some radioactive accident and get the power to be invisible."

Wally laughed, "Is it just me or is it weird that it is entirely possible that that could happen to you, you know if you didn't die from the radioactivity."

"Wow, Wally, way to be positive about her getting superpowers." Artemis said sarcastically.

"What? I'm just saying that considering there is a League of superpowered heroes protecting the world, it wouldn't be weird for her to get superpowers. Of course, the likelihood of her surviving a radioactive or nuclear accident is—"

"Stop!" Raquel cut him off. "It was just a question. All your science talk is making me tired and hurting my brain."

"Okay, okay, I'm done, no more science talk for the night."

Everyone cheered. "Well, that done, I think I'm going to head to my room and try to get a full night's sleep for once." Raquel said standing up. The rest of them soon followed, but Dick and Zatanna decided to stay a little longer, unlike the others, they weren't tired yet.

"Zatanna, I need to tell you something."

"What's up, Dick?"

"I know."

"You know what?" Zatanna asked cautiously.

"I know that you're Zatanna."

"Yes, Dick, that's my name." She was starting to get a little freaked out; he couldn't possibly mean that he knew she was the other Zatanna, the hero.

"I meant I know you're the Zatanna who wears a magician costume and a domino mask, who fights bad guys by using magic, that Zatanna."

Her eyes widened, "I'm sorry you must be mistaken, Dick, I can't do any kind of magic, let alone fight criminals."

"Z, I saw you at the grocery store." He said; she was unaware that he was fishing for anything he could think of to get her to admit it and prove him right.

"You saw me do what, exactly?"

"I saw you land on that disk and use magic to change back into you regular clothes."

"Crap. Dick, you have to promise not to tell anyone, do you understand me?"

"Yeah, I promise, don't worry, I won't tell anyone." 'Not even Bats.' He thought, though it was likely that Batman already knew.

She sighed in relief, "Thanks, Dick."

"No problem, and don't worry I'm not mad that you didn't tell me, I understand why you couldn't."

"Yeah, it would kinda ruin the whole secret identity/live a normal life thing." She laughed softly.

"Yeah, but I need your help."

"With…"

"I think that some of the others may be superheroes too."

"Really? Who?"

"I'll tell you in a second, you just need to agree to help me first okay?" When she nodded, he continued. "I'm trying to figure out who is who but I can't do it all on my own, I need help from someone who fights alongside them, someone who would see both the heroes and our dorm mates up close and personal." 'Someone other than me.' He thought ruefully.

"Okay, sure I would have to fight with them anyway, but why do you want to find out so bad?"

That stalled him, should he tell her, should he risk it? Could he? "I, uh, I'm just curious, I guess, and it's been bothering me for a while, just some weird actions or reactions to things, I want to find out the truth."

"Okay, when do you want to start looking?"

"Um, how about tomorrow?" He suggested.

"Sounds good, but I'm going to follow the rest of them and head up to bed, night."

"Night." He replied as she walked away. He sighed, he was a coward. He had the chance to come clean and tell someone he actually trusted, probably one of the few people he really trusted, and he hadn't. His mind had reminded him that he probably only trusted her because he knew her secret and he had wimped out of telling her his, now he lost his chance. His pride wouldn't let him chase after her and tell her with the excuse that he was afraid. If he was ever going to tell her, or anyone for that matter, it would have to be because he trusted them without a doubt, so he would keep his secret, for now, and wait for that time to come.

* * *

**Reviewers:**

**numbah435spiritsong: I'm glad you like Suki and the pairing I chose for her. I'm kinda putting the Spitfire progression like in the show, but I'm really skipping over most of the 'friends' part.**

**Hybrid301: Thanks.**

**Believe-daydream-Fly529: Thank you.**

**ShadowlightStarlight: It actually is a part of his vocab, at least it's used. It's in the episode called "Humanity" when Zatanna first shows up.**

**Angelus-v1: I actually thought Zatanna said it first but it's been a while since I've seen that episode, so I could be wrong, but yeah, he does usually say the invented words.**

**Traught: Yup, that's where I got her name, have some digital cookies. (::) (::)**


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: Young Justice isn't mine.**

***hides* Please don't hit me. I've just been having some trouble writing on this story lately. I have ideas, but they're mostly for stories that I don't post. I'm still not going to give up, but updates are probably going to be pretty spread out unless I can get back into a routine of writing on this. Well, I guess that's what school holidays are for. Oh, and something actually about the story, I realized that I've kinda been ignoring my OC for a while now. I'm deciding to fix this, so from now on, it's going to be more OC-centric unless it makes a lot more sense for it not to be, like in the beginning of this chap.**

_***Italics are flashbacks and they are in first person since they are basically that person's thoughts***_

* * *

"How do you want to do this?" Zatanna asked as she walked into Dick's room.

"Well," he started, closing the door, "I figure we just go about everything like normal, but pay attention to what they do, especially when you're fighting with them."

"That's it? How did you figure out who I was then?" She asked him incredulously.

He raised an eyebrow, "Your name is the same when you're a hero as it is now. Plus I got lucky." 'Extremely lucky. If she hadn't said chalant I would probably still be at square one.'

"True," she relented, "but how does that help us?"'

"Have you ever heard of Artemis, in Gotham?"

"No, the only Artemis I've ever met is my roommate." She said with a shake of her head. He gave her a look. "What? Artemis is my roommate; I don't know another- oh! You think she could be the hero."

"Yeah, they have a lot of things in common."

"Like…?"

"Well, their names, they both live in Gotham, they're both archers, and they're both blond." He listed off.

"Okay, wow."

"Yeah, so I figure we should start with her, see if we can eliminate her from the list, both lists actually since no one else on either is blond."

"Okay, but I'm not going to force her to tell me." Zatanna said as she walked to the door.

"That would probably be a good idea." He closed the door behind her. Well, that was phase one, Zatanna was looking into her roommate, he should probably be doing the same. He sighed, this wasn't going to be pleasant, at the very least it would be awkward.

* * *

No, no, no, this wasn't supposed to happen. He wasn't supposed to even be here. And especially not while she was here. But of course he was. Her life wasn't hard enough, apparently. Emerald Torch grit her teeth as she changed and flew downtown to do her job and fight one of the only enemies all Green Lanterns had in common: Sinestro. She really hated the Guardians sometimes.

"I was wondering how much trouble I would have to cause to catch your attention, little one." Sinestro said when she arrived and blocked his path with a wall of energy.

"You had my attention the whole time, traffic's just terrible." She said before using the wall like a fly swatter to smack him into the street.

"Always so brash, child, have they taught you nothing at Oa?" He said as he pushed himself up and back into the air.

"If they had, I wouldn't have to fight you so much, Sinestro." She readied herself for another attack, this one more in her typical style of hand-to-hand, when Sinestro was hit in the jaw by some projectile with a boxing glove on the end. An _arrow_ with a boxing glove on the end. 'Oh, not him again.' She thought with an internal groan. She looked down to where it had come from to see none other than Red Arrow in the street. 'Joy.'

While she had been looking for him, Sinestro had recovered from the blow; it hadn't even knocked him out of the air. 'Way to go Red.' Of course, he managed to catch her off guard and throw her into the wall of the building next to her with the power of his ring. She crashed through the glass and into an office to the sound of the employee's screams. 'Well, that was pleasant.' She thought as she pushed herself up and brushed the glass off, ignoring the cuts she was sure she would have to deal with later. She made her way to the window to see Red Arrow trying to fight Sinestro. Key word being trying. The only arrows that were making any impact were the exploding ones, and that only worked the first time, Sinestro wasn't an idiot. But apparently Red Arrow was, he was almost out of arrows already because of how he had wasted them. 'Actually, come to think of it, he had been low on arrows when he got here.' It didn't matter though, now she had to worry about him, Sinestro, and the civilians and the amount of arrows he had wouldn't change that. Crap, the civilians were still just standing there.

"Everybody, get out of the streets and into a building!" She yelled to them when she reached the ground. "Don't worry I-we have everything under control." Of course as soon as she said that, a car came sailing towards them. The civilians screamed, but she simply made a giant baseball glove with her ring and caught the bus, setting it on the ground. "Get inside!" Thankfully they listened and she turned back to the battle.

Sinestro was finally getting tired of reacting defensively to Red's attacks apparently because he changed the shield in front of him into a fist and punched Red back with it. Torch flew towards them and grabbed Red before he could hit the ground.

"Get out of here, this isn't your fight." She said before forming her typical boxing gloves and charging at Sinestro.

"Yeah, like that's gonna happen." She heard him say from behind her before he launched another exploding arrow. She didn't realize what was happening until it was too late. She was almost to Sinestro when the arrow passed her and Sinestro reacted quicker than her. He put up a shield again, which cut her off from hitting him, and also directing most of the blast in her direction. She fell to the concrete which was suddenly a lot farther down now that she couldn't fly. The last thing she saw before she passed out on the street was Red Arrow, still firing his dwindling arrow supply at Sinestro's shield.

'Idiot.'

* * *

Torch woke slowly with a groan. 'Oh God, my head hurts. What the hell happened?' She thought as she looked around her. The first thing she noticed was that she was in some yellow box. 'Sinestro's power ring. Great, just great.' The second thing was that she had a cellmate.

"What are you doing here, Red?" She asked none too kindly. Her head hurt too much to bother with manners, like she ever did around Red.

"Same as you. After you passed out and I ran out of arrows, Sinestro used that ring of his to trap us in this box and brought us here. You've been unconscious for the past four hours."

"This is just great- wait did you say four hours?!"

"Yeah, that's how long you've been out. What did you have a date or something?" He gave her an incredulous look.

"Never mind." She said with a shake of her head. There was no way she would tell him all about her life, even if it was a little detail like whether or not she had dinner plans. She didn't, it was just that someone would probably start worrying if she didn't show up at the dorm soon. "Did he say anything while I was out?" She would rather ask Sinestro about his plans, but he seemed to have stepped out of the empty warehouse they were in.

"Not much," Red shrugged, "just something about how two hero captives were better bait for his prey than one. Unfortunately I'm paraphrasing; it was a lot longer and full of even more metaphors than that."

"He's planning on using us as bait?" She asked. "No offense, but who would he want to catch that would come for you?"

"Gee, the "no offense" makes everything better." He said sarcastically.

"What, it's true. He has a grudge against all Green Lanterns, which explains why he's using me as bait: for the other Green Lanterns on Earth, but he really doesn't care about any other heroes on Earth. You would just be an extra risk to keep captive."

"Yes, the arrowless archer, such a threat. All I have now is my pocket knife." Red said almost dejectedly. That confused her; the normally cocky hero was doubting himself?

"If used the right way, anything can be a threat. We need a plan to get out of here." She said looking around the box for any weak points though she already knew there would be none.

"Well, you still have your ring, use it to punch us out of here."

She was shaking her head before he even finished. "My ring won't work on anything yellow, I can't break the box."

"That explains why he left it on you then."

"No, he can't take it off unless I willingly give it up, or unless I die." She added the last part like it was a second thought, something she had never really considered before and didn't really care about in the long run.

"Is that how you got your ring then? Someone died?" He asked, suddenly curious, the superior look that he usually sported was gone.

"Yeah, some alien woman who was a Green Lantern, I don't know her name, she knew she was going to die soon so she took her ring off. When a Lantern gives their ring up like she did, it looks for the next person to bear it. She let it lead her to me and she died a few minutes after she gave it to me." She didn't know why she was telling him all this, it wasn't like it should matter to him, but he looked interested.

"Wow, kid, that's kinda intense." He said with a surprised look on his face.

"That was the simple part. The ring comes with a lot of responsibilities, they're not something a _kid_ can handle." She turned her back to him the best that she could in the box. That right there was the reason she had started to dislike Red Arrow, or Speedy at the time: he treated her like an incapable kid. She still remembered that day.

_I was so happy GL was finally letting me join in a battle with an actual super villain, no just some robber. Don't get me wrong, fighting robbers is good too, but this was the big leagues. GL said something about it being a "team-up" too and I was so excited. The villain was apparently the leader of the triads in another city trying to set up a branch here with the help of the local gangs. I'm not entirely sure what a triad is since there isn't one here, but GL told me it basically meant that there would be a lot of men and they would all have a lot of weapons, especially this triad. Our job was to stop them._

_I was practically floating waiting to get to the action and meet the heroes we were teaming up with. Well, actually I _was _floating. I was sure GL was giving me a look that meant I should put a lid on my excitement but I didn't care; there probably wasn't a lid big enough at this point._

"_Torch," GL whispered to me, "there they are." He tilted his head toward the roof of the building next to us. The heroes, whoever they were, were jumping to it from the next building over and were making their way to us._

"_John," I whisper-whined, "why won't you just tell me who they are?"_

"_Because this is more fun, now shush it's time to start."_

_I hadn't even noticed but the heroes had just landed on the roof next to us. I could finally see them in the dim glow of the street light beneath us. It was Green Arrow and Speedy! I couldn't believe it, this was so cool. I managed to keep my excitement that showed at the same level as before, but I was freaking out on the inside. While GL and Green Arrow talked about how we were going to do this, I was just staring at Speedy. Can you blame me? Before I got my ring, and therefore my powers, Green Arrow, Batman, Robin, and Speedy were pretty much my idols. There was just something about them not having powers that gave me hope that I could do something amazing like they did. They were still kinda my idols, though the position had also been filled with John and Hal._

"_Why are you floating? And stop staring at me like that!" Speedy snapped. I was a little taken aback by his tone but I decided he was just tired, it was about two in the morning after all._

"_Sorry, I'm just so excited; this is my first time fighting an actual villain. This is going to be so much more fun than bank robbers!" I said, managing to get my feet back on the ground, though I continued to rock back and forth on my heels._

_He rolled his eyes at me and was about to say something when his mentor started giving us orders. Speedy and I were going to wait on the roof opposite him while GL flew around the perimeter and wait for the deal to begin, then we would take them down. I was thrilled, but Speedy looked less than happy._

_We waited on the roof for about another hour when the triads showed up. I gave up talking to Speedy within the first twenty minutes. He was making it really hard for him to be one of my idols. _

_The first person to step out of the car was an Asian woman with long white hair. I was a little surprised, but I would be a hypocrite if I thought she shouldn't be there. She was followed by a group of men and they all moved forward to shake hands with the leaders of our local gangs._

"_Time to move, let's go." I heard Green Arrow say in the earpiece he had given me. Speedy launched a grappling arrow to the ground near the group while Green Arrow did the same and GL and I flew down. I took out one man as I flew down before landing next to my mentor. I didn't pay much attention to what Green Arrow and Speedy were doing; I was focusing all my attention on forming the right things with my ring to fight them. GL had planned on just caging them all with his ring, but they must have anticipated this because they scattered almost immediately. I was left to fight them close up. I would have to thank my parents for all those karate classes. I was doing fine until the woman with white hair let down some smoke bomb and all of them pulled out guns. I wasn't really prepared for it. Yes, I know GL told me they would have guns, but in the fight I guess I had just forgot about it. I ended up standing petrified as the man I had been turning to fight pulled his gun out. He was just about to fire it when an arrow connected with is jaw and knocked him to the ground._

"_Either you focus, kid, or you can get out of the way and let us handle the adult stuff." He said to me with a sneer before moving on to find his next target._

_I jumped into action, helping GL, but his words stuck in my mind along with one thought. He definitely wasn't one of my idols anymore._

Okay, so it was a little petty. She hated being treated like that though, even back then. There was nothing she could do about what he had said, but there was also nothing she could do about the fact that he still persisted in acting like that. For so long she had tried to prove to him that she was as capable a hero as he was and after so many years, it had made her bitter.

"We still need a plan you know, regardless of what you're angry at me for this time." He said from the other side of the box, once again drawing her attention to him.

"We just need to wait." She said calmly as she turned back to face him.

"Excuse me? That's your master plan, _waiting_?" He said incredulously.

She rolled her eyes, "He's using us as bait right?" Red nodded. "Well, he's going to be waiting for a long time; eventually he'll lose the concentration it takes to keep this box strong enough to prevent us from breaking it. The pocket knife should work fine."

"What do you mean "he's going to be waiting for a long time"?

"We, well mainly me, are bait for John, Hal and Guy, at least one of them, and they aren't going to come looking for me."

"Why not? They're pretty much your mentors, right?" He asked, confused.

"Yeah, they are," she nodded, "but it's not like I'm twelve any more, I don't check in or see one of them every day. They really aren't concerned unless I don't contact any of them for any reason like every two weeks or so." She shrugged. "Besides, Sinestro took all your ways to contact the League or anyone else, right?" Again, he nodded. "Then we wait."

She had about an hour with no sound coming from his side of the box and then he just had to start talking again.

"What did you mean when you were fighting him?"

"Gonna have to be more specific, Red, I said more than one thing." She had leaned her head against the wall of the box and closed her eyes and she had no intention of opening them now, she had just gotten comfortable.

"When you said if they had taught you anything at Oa then you wouldn't have to fight him all the time, what did that mean?"

She sighed and sat up fully, eyes opened, "It means I've never trained at Oa."

"Isn't that like required for Green Lanterns, though?"

"For most, yes, for me, no."

"And why not?"

"Why are you so interested?"

He shrugged, "We have nothing else to do, I might as well learn a little more about the girl who hates me."

"Well, I'm not going to lie to you and say I don't."

"Gee, thanks." He said with an eye roll. Well she assumed it was an eye roll, masks made it really hard to tell.

"Hey, you said it first, would you rather I lied?"

"Whatever, just answer me. Please." She didn't know why he had said the last part, though she assumed it had something to do with the glare she sent his way. There was no way it was Bat-Glare quality, but she could give a mean glare.

"I got my ring at age twelve, John wasn't going to let the Guardians force a…_kid_ to live in space away from her family while she was trained. He forced them to let him train me here."

"What does that have to do with you fighting Sinestro?"

"I still have to take orders from the Guardians, whether I've trained at Oa or not. Their orders are that as long as I'm close enough to Sinestro to get there in time, it's my job to fight him either until he leaves or another Lantern shows up."

"That, that sucks, Torch." Her face went slack for a second. 'He just called me Torch not "kid" or "shortstuff" or anything else like that. I, I liked it, why did I like it?' She shook her head to gather her thoughts, it really didn't matter what he called her, right?

"It's my, uh, my punishment I guess. They don't like me, I'm a…flight risk. They may be the guardians of the universe, but even they can hold a grudge when you don't stick to their system."

"I'm sorry."

She shook her head, she had long since come to terms with it. She used fighting Sinestro as further training. He usually beat her, and she needed that, she needed to be beaten to get better, that was one thing judo had taught her: you can't learn if nothing's a challenge. "Since when are you so nice to me, Red?"

"Since we got stuck in a box together. Fighting would get us nowhere, I figure being nice is the only option."

"How touching." She heard Sinestro say from the entrance to the warehouse. He made his way over to the box and tossed a bag in. The wall of the box cleared for it, but it wasn't enough space for her to even bother trying anything. Red apparently thought so too. "None of your Lanterns have shown up yet."

"Guess you don't know them as well as you think you do." Torch taunted. She knew he wouldn't do anything to her, she was his _precious _bait.

"They will come." With that, he moved off to another area of the warehouse that was closed off to them. She assumed it was where he had set up his "living quarters" while he waited.

"Well, we might as well." Red gestured to the bag. It had chips and sandwiches in it. "Do you have a preference?"

"Nah, just pass me something." He did and they ate in companionable silence. "Okay," she said when she finished, "we need to talk about the plan."

"What about it?"

"Sinestro's going to need to sleep eventually, he won't be focused then. The box's power should fade enough then for you to break it if you throw your knife at the weakest looking point. I trust you can do that, archer?" She asked with an almost teasing smirk, very different than her usual one.

"Just tell me where." He replied with a confident smirk to match her own.

"It'll be the most transparent spot. Once you hit that, it should break the rest of the box and then we'll have to run."

"Wait, run? I don't run." He objected.

"Would you rather wait around for him to wake up and try to fight him again with no arrows?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Fine." He huffed.

"I can have good ideas you know."

"I didn't say you couldn't, I just don't like it when you do."

"Should I ask why or would it just make me hate you more?"

He considered it for a while. "You shouldn't ask. But _I_ have a question to ask: why _do_ you hate me?

"I'm not a kid." Was her only response.

"That doesn't answer my question."

"You treat me like a kid, I'm not a kid." She reiterated.

"When have I ever treated you like a kid?" He asked, confused.

"I could give you a list." She said shortly.

"A list?" he asked incredulously.

"Starting the day we met." She continued in the same manner. It almost shocked her how quickly the two of them had gone from almost friends to arguing again.

"Wait, _that_?" He asked, apparently remembering what happened. "That's why you hate me?"

She shrugged, "That's why I started hating you."

He actually laughed. "That's it? Wow, I never knew you were so petty."

"You'd feel the same way I did if you had to deal with people treating you like you couldn't do things because you were younger."

He sobered up quickly at that. "I never meant to treat you like you couldn't do things. I just didn't want you to get hurt, that first time at least. After that, well calling you kid just became habit; I didn't think it bothered you. Plus I was…jealous, okay."

"Jealous? Of what?" She scoffed, "You were the hero, I was just the new kid. I looked up to you."

"Exactly, you were the new kid. As far as I knew, you didn't have to do anything to get your powers, all you had to do was be the right person for the ring. I worked for so long to be as good as I was at archery and I went through a lot to get to where I was. I was annoyed that you pretty much got the hero life handed to you, especially when you wanted it."

"It's not like I asked for it; I just didn't complain when it happened. Trust me, it was never my intention to piss you off because I was a hero. I meant it, I looked up to you."

"Really?" He asked. She nodded, albeit slightly reluctantly. "Why?"

"Because, before I got my powers, I was just the smaller than average girl from Albuquerque who took karate. The fact that you didn't have any powers and you were a hero was something for me to aspire towards. You, GA, Robin, and Batman gave me hope that I could be more than an average girl, powers or not. I just got lucky to get the ring."

"Huh. Guess you're not the spoiled brat I thought you were."

"Should I be offended?" she asked with an amused, but confused, smile.

"No, it was a poorly based judgment." He shook his head.

"And now?" she asked.

"Now I'm making new ones, hopefully better ones." He said with a small smile.

"So am I."

"Is it any good?" he asked with that cocky smirk back in place.

"I'll let you know."

"Did we just have a semi-pleasant conversation?"

"I think we actually did." She said in surprise.

"I'd say don't get used to it, but I think that would ruin the moment."

She laughed, "I think you just ruined it." When he saw she wasn't mad, he laughed with her.

It was weird, never before had she had a polite conversation with Red Arrow, but when they get trapped in a situation where they should have had even shorter tempers with each other, they got along. What was even more surprising was that she _liked_ it. She liked not fighting with him. In fact, the way they talked when they weren't arguing almost reminded her of how she talked with Roy. 'No, no, no, no, no, don't start relating him to Roy. They are two incredibly different people. They just have the same hair and attitude and skill and, no, not going there. Just focus on getting out of here.' She thought as they lapsed into a comfortable silence.

She didn't know how long they were like that before the wall of the box started fading.

"He's falling asleep. No, not until I tell you." She said when she saw Red readying his knife to throw. "We need to wait until he's all the way asleep otherwise he might realize what we're doing and take that knife."

"Right." Red nodded.

They waited, Red absentmindedly playing with his knife, Torch studying the box for any further fading. When she saw a spot that was continually translucent she nodded to Red.

"Where?"

"Right there, the patch where you can see the real colors of the warehouse best." He nodded and aimed with the knife. He let it fly and it hit its mark exactly. She couldn't help but smirk. The box started to crack around the area where the knife now stuck. She stood up and punched one of the other weaker points she saw, not bothering with her ring, she knew that would actually make the hit weaker. Red took the hint and followed suit. In a matter of minutes they were out of the box. "Let's go, he'll probably wake up soon; he'll have felt that." Red nodded and they went their separate ways, or what they both thought were their separate ways.

* * *

'What the hell am I going to tell everyone when I get back?' Torch thought as she flew through the night sky. It was probably around midnight, maybe later; at least no one would likely be up. 'Well, the best lies have a grain of truth. I should at least tell some of the truth, just distort it a little. I really wish I didn't have to, but where would I get if I told them and it went badly? Lying is my best option.' She sighed and continued on her way.

* * *

Roy looked around the media room as he made his way through the dorms to his room as quietly as he could, hoping not to meet anyone on his way. He was doing fine until he ran into Suki. He heard her stifle a scream when he literally ran into her.

"Hey, it's just me, calm down." He said with a laugh.

"Roy? What are you doing up?"

"I just got in. Ollie was in town and he wanted to spend some "quality time" with me." He said with an eye roll. The only good thing about having to lie to her was that he felt guilty. At least it hadn't gotten to the point where he was okay with lying to the people he cared about.

"Well how did that go? You don't sound too happy about it."

"Ollie and I, we have a complicated relationship. I'm not gonna make you listen to it all, I would be keeping you up even later than you already are. Why are you up this late anyway?" He asked.

"I got into some trouble when I went to the bank earlier today."

"Trouble, what kind of trouble?" He asked worriedly. He knew Sinestro had been rampaging, but he hoped she hadn't gotten caught in the crossfire.

"That stupid villain Sinestro decided it would be a good idea to hold all the people in the bank hostage as bait for one of the Green Lanterns. We were all stuck in there until Emerald Torch showed up. I literally just got back. I'm fine." She added when she saw the look on his face.

"You're sure?" He asked worriedly. 'And I'm back to lying, but so is she…why?'

"Absolutly, but I'm exhausted so I'm going to head up. Night." She said with a kiss on his cheek before going upstairs.

"Night." He called after her before going to his own room. He lay down on his bed and thought about, well everything that happened all day.

'I can't believe Emerald Torch and I actually got along for an extended period of time, and we worked together. Actually, some of the things she said reminded me of Suki. But at least I think Torch was honest with me. Why would Suki lie? What was she hiding? Granted if I hadn't been there, captured by Sinestro, I never would have known she was lying, but she still did. Does it actually matter? I have to lie to her all the time. Maybe she just wanted to keep whatever she'd been doing private.' He punched his pillow in frustration. 'Should I really be mad at her because she did the same thing I do all the time? Maybe she was doing something really private or it wasn't something she was comfortable telling me. But shouldn't she be? I mean we are kinda dating aren't we? And we shouldn't be keeping secrets then. But I am. Does that mean I should tell her? I don't want to put her in danger, and if she's keeping secrets from me, then can I really trust her with that secret? Should I risk it?' he sighed and turned over, he needed to sleep he would deal with this in the morning.

* * *

Dick sat up from his position on the couch in the media room. 'Roy and Suki both coming in late? At the same time? What was that all about?' He made his way up to his room. He had kinda fallen asleep doing his English Lit. reading. It had paid off though; now he had more evidence to figure out if any of the other people in the dorm were heroes. 'Sinestro didn't take any civilian hostages and Oliver Queen is on the east coast. Why were Roy and Suki lying? More importantly why did Roy seem to know she was lying?' He didn't get it, not yet, but he would, he was going to figure this out, no matter how long it took. 'I wouldn't be living up to the Batman training if I didn't.'

* * *

**Wow, I actually meant for this to be a lot happier and maybe full of fluff, and then I saw Endgame. I cried for two days. I'm just glad no one in my family asked me about why. I would dedicate this chapter to Wally but there are two reasons why I didn't: 1. I refuse to believe he's dead and 2. I'm still too emotionally unstable to right more than a few sentences about him at a time…so yeah. But other than that I'm pretty happy with think chapter, I hope you enjoyed it, sorry it took me so long.**

**Reviews:**

**Numbah435spiritsong: Yeah, I suck at Truth or Dare, but I couldn't resist. Lol yeah, I was always confused how she kept her secret identity a secret, but I guess she wasn't too worried about it or something (?) that's why I at least gave her a mask to help a little. Thank you so much and I'm sorry this took so long.**

**ShadowlightStarlight: You're not stupid; you just need to see the rest of this awesome show, in fact I would say it's completely necessary ;). Thank you.**

**Tigrun: They're working together now so there's definitely going to be more interaction, still not sure how fast I'm going to have their romance go yet though…**

**Seraband: Thank you so much!**

**Hybrid301: Dick's learned too well from Batman on how to keep a secret XD that's probably going to come back and kick his butt later though.**

**J9162: Wow, thank you. I'm sorry the update's so late though.**

**Chalant-writer3: Thank you so much! (I get the feeling that's your favorite pairing… ;))**


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: Nothing except Suki and the plot are mine.**

* * *

Sinestro gazed across the room at his employers. "That's all I learned from my mission."

"Your information is beneficial, Sinestro. You will get your revenge on the Green Lantern Corps soon enough." The leader informed him in that monotone of his. "Our research is nearing completion. The young heroes seem to be centered around Colorado Springs. If our inferences are correct, we have all the forces necessary to enact our plans successfully, even with the interference of the young heroes."

Sinestro smiled cruelly. Just let that little Lantern try and escape him now.

* * *

"Are you sure he's left the area?" Hal's voice asked through her ring.

"Positive. I went back this morning and checked out the warehouse. Everything was empty, like nothing had ever happened." Suki shook her head, even though he couldn't see her.

"Alright." He sighed. "Good job though, at least no one got hurt."

"It would have been better if Red Arrow hadn't shown up; he had no idea how to deal with Sinestro and I had to guard his back instead of mine." As soon as she mentioned it though, she regretted it, she was just setting herself up for teasing.

"Red Arrow, huh? That must have been interesting?" And there it was. She could almost hear the smirk in Hal's voice.

"No está como eso, Hal." Wow, she hadn't gotten that worked up in a long while; usually she was able to keep herself in the English language for the benefit of her non-bilingual friends. She only ever lapsed back into Spanish, like she would almost always do at home, when she was caught off guard and even that she had gotten under some form of control.

"I'm sorry, what?" He asked, the teasing tone leaving his voice momentarily. Whoops, she forgot he still didn't understand most Spanish.

"I said "It's not like that, Hal.""

"Sure it's not, just remember if you ever have relationship troubles I'm here to talk." The teasing tone returned. She really wished she knew whether or not he was being serious because he probably knew all about Roy and it was driving her crazy that he was acting like he knew something she didn't.

"Oh, shut up."

He laughed at her. "Hey at least you called me and not John, he'd never let you forget it."

"You won't either." Seriously it was practically like they were the same person sometimes.

"This is true. You know, you didn't sound too upset that he showed up…"

She groaned, her mentors just loved to mess with her. "Hal, if you don't have any more questions about Sinestro, I need to go."

Hal chuckled again. "Bye, Suki."

She rolled her eyes as she turned off the communication on her ring. John and Hal were like the overprotective, teasing older brothers she'd never had. However there were some times she wished they were less like that. Like now.

Suddenly she heard a gust of wind and a strangely familiar voice from below her. "Phew, that was a good run." She walked over to the edge of the building and looked down into the area between hers and the one next to her. 'What the hell is Kid Flash doing in Colorado Springs?' She thought as she looked down on him. He pushed his cowl up and for the second time that day, she was caught off guard. 'Dios mío, _Wally's_ Kid Flash?! Wow I really should have seen that coming what with the hyperactive tendencies.' And of course she couldn't stop the gasp that escaped her mouth when she first saw him and Wally, being a hero, heard it. "Who's there?" He asked suspiciously, slipping his cowl back into place.

Suki wanted to slap herself for that, but that wouldn't help anything. She just shut her eyes and hoped he would be gone when she opened them. She waited a minute and then opened them again. He was gone. 'Phew, that was close.' She thought just as she felt a gust of wind at her back. 'Crap.'

"Ma'am," She heard him ask in that "hero voice" they all probably adopted when they put on the mask. "what are you doing up here?"

"You don't need to keep up the act, Wally, I know it's you." She said before turning around, her costume in place except for her mask. 'Might as well give an eye for an eye. I know his secret, he should know mine, besides I trust Wally, he's a good guy, in both identities.'

"_Suki_?" His eyes widened and she was pleasantly surprised to realize that he didn't have anything actually covering his _eyes_, just his face around them. It was a nice change of pace. "You-you're…"

"Yeah, and you're Kid Flash, shocking right?"

He looked at her warily, "So are you going to start glaring at me all the time like you do Red Arrow?"

"What? No, just because you're Kid Flash doesn't mean you're not still _you_; I glare at Red Arrow because he's an ass." 'An ass I had a civil conversation with yesterday in a hostage situation. I don't even want to know why everyone thinks of me and Red Arrow at the same time though.' "You're not going to start glaring at _me_ all the time now though, are you?" She asked trying to lighten the mood.

"No, not unless you hurt me physically again." He said with a small smile.

She laughed, "Deal."

"So we're confidents now?"

"I guess, I mean, I won't tell anyone and I'm assuming you won't…" She waited for him to nod in the affirmative, "Good, then sure I guess if you really need to talk about something to do with your being a superhero then I'm happy to help."

"Cool." He said, almost bouncing on the balls of his feet.

She raised an eyebrow at the excitable speedster, "You had something you wanted to talk about right now didn't you?"

"Yeah, that was why I went running, it helps me think."

"Alright, shoot." She said, sitting down with her back against the half wall of the edge of the roof.

"How do you manage to be in a relationship when you have to lie to Roy?" He said in a rush-well a rush for her probably not for him- as he sat next to her.

She almost burst out laughing until she looked at him and saw he was serious, "Well, it's hard. Why are you asking?"

"I don't know, I just want some advice so I can at least try, though I don't think she feels the same."

"I'm not even going to ask who-yet" She added when she saw the surprise on his face, "but I can tell you that you need to really care about her otherwise it's just going to be a lot of hard work for nothing."

"So you really care about Roy then?" He asked her, that teasing smirk she usually saw on Dick now in place on his face.

"I think I do." She answered honestly, regardless of his tone, although, right now, she wasn't so sure how he felt about her, he'd been ignoring her since they ran into each other last night and she had lied to him. Come to think of it, he was sort of distant while they were still talking after she told him her lie. Was she that see-through, or did he just not trust her?

"Well then how do you handle lying to him about half of your life?"

"First off, I don't think my life is split evenly between the two, especially lately, but it's not like I really have a choice. I wish I didn't have to, but it's too complicated right now, I'm not sure how he would react to the truth. I guess if you want to get technical about it, I tell him tweaked lies of omission. Look, you don't want to put this girl in any danger by telling her, right?" She asked him, deciding that, her personal issues aside, if she was really going to tell him to lie to someone-she had a pretty good idea of who, too- she wanted all the information first.

"Yeah, that's the last thing I want to do."

"Then I would try that. You don't need to tell her some complete, utter lie but you can't tell her the truth. Just try to find the middle ground. That's really the best advice I've got." 'Yeah, and look how well that's working for me. Roy and I are slowly falling apart, I know it, and I'm not doing anything to stop it. If I tell him, it could ruin whatever we still have _and_ he would be in danger. The only alternative I have is to keep up what I'm doing and wait for it all to come crashing down, but I'm not sure I can just let it draw itself out like that. God I wish I could just date a hero, at least they would understand the lies.' She sighed, almost forgetting about Wally sitting next to her until he spoke again.

"Thanks, it's better than what I've been doing." He actually looked really sad, and she had an idea why. When you had a secret identity like they did, you couldn't risk telling anyone until you were sure they wouldn't rat you out and even then, you had kept it a secret for so long it was hard to tell if they would ever forgive you for lying to them like that. That was one of the reasons she was worried about her and Roy right now. She hadn't told him, but she had lied and he could have very easily found out, judging by his recent behavior, he knew something was up.

She laughed, though humorlessly, "I highly doubt that. Now," She started, her expression changing into a smirk, "who is this girl? Someone I know perhaps?"

Wally looked down, a blush staining his cheeks, "Maybe." He said quietly, she almost didn't hear him.

"And would her name be Artemis Crock?"

He looked up to see her still looking at him with that smirk but there was also joy in her eyes. She was happy that he liked her; he just needed to do something about it. "Yeah." He sighed in defeat, she had already known, she was just waiting for him to say something.

"Good, things should work out well then." She said before standing up and flying off towards the dorms. At least someone in their world would get a chance at their "Happily Ever After".

"Wait, what does that mean? Torch?" He called after her.

"You'll figure it out, Kid, you're smart." She called back. What, she couldn't just tell him that Artemis liked him back, but she could totally tell him to go for it.

* * *

Nightwing knew he was being followed. He just decided that Red Arrow wasn't out to kill, capture, attack or otherwise harm him in anyway so he let him follow. If Red wanted his help with something, he would have to ask.

"Alright, I know you know I'm here so would you stop making a show of it?" He heard Red ask in an annoyed tone from behind him.

"Why, Red Arrow, what are you doing in the pleasant town or Colorado Springs?" Nightwing asked as he turned to face Red, a big, cheesy smile on his face. He wasn't thrilled to see the other hero, but he would take any chance to do some research.

"Cut the crap, Nightwing. I have a favor to ask." Red continued in that annoyed tone, though now Nightwing wasn't sure if it was directed at him or because he was asking for something.

"What did you have in mind?" He asked, dropping the smile and resuming his usual stony face. He really hated that face, it just wasn't him, but that was kind of the whole point, so he put up with it.

"I want you to find out what someone was doing yesterday, anything you can find."

Nightwing snickered, "Wow, Red, I never would have pegged you for the stalker type." Red glared at him. Really, why did people keep glaring at him, he worked with _the Batman_ for crying out loud, no glare would ever faze him again. He rolled his eyes, "I need a name you know, I don't read minds." 'This is research,' he reminded himself, 'figuring out who he hangs out with will help with the research.'

"Suki Santiago." Red said shortly.

Nightwing's eyes widened slightly, not enough for Red to really take notice. He was right; there was some connection, with Red Arrow at least, with his dorm mates. "Stalking a girl, really?" Nightwing shook his head, trying to cover his surprise. "I'll get you everything I can find tomorrow, meet me here, same time."

When Red nodded he turned and headed one a roundabout path to the dorm to start digging a little deeper into Suki's life than he would usually be comfortable doing. She had a right to her privacy, but now he was being asked to use his skills and he wasn't going to do a bad job, not now. As he jumped to the next roof he heard Red say under his breath, "I have to know." He didn't know what that meant yet, but when he was done with finding out how Suki spent her day yesterday, he had a feeling he would.

* * *

**Whoo! This story hit 50 reviews last chapter so thank you to everyone who's reviewed, followed or favorited for your support.**

**Reviews:**

**Numbah435spiritsong: I'm glad you liked the Suki/Roy interaction and Suki's backstory, I wasn't sure if her reasoning for hating Red was sort of blown out of proportion so… I don't blame you for the longish rant, I reblogged like every single post about missing Wally since I saw the episode, we all grieve in different ways I guess. I actually refuse to believe that if they did (or do) a 3****rd**** season that Wally will remain dead, I've seen them bring him back in other shows before.**

**ShadowlightStarlight: I'm glad you got to see all of it and yeah, "Endgame" was like ten times worse than "Failsafe" so I'm actually surprised the fandom survived. It's pretty weird to watch it in order and then see all of them age up five years and have no idea what happened so I think there's going to be a weird feeling watching YJ no matter what order you watch it lol.**

**Stronger123: Thank you.**

**J9162: Thank you, for the compliment, the sympathy and the suggestion I'll be sure to look for them.**

**BatBrat: Thank you (P.S. I love your name)**


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: Not mine.**

**Thank you krazyessi for agreeing to beta this and my other story. (If you like Naruto fanfiction look her up, she has a NaruHina story that I am beta-ing and I like it and it don't even really enjoy Naruto so…yeah on with the story)**

**_*Italics are still flashbacks and the same rules about POV still apply*_**

* * *

"So… how'd it go?" Suki asked in a singsong voice as Wally walked into the otherwise empty media room.

Wally chuckled and shook his head before answering as he sat down on the couch with her, "Good, really good."

"Care to elaborate? At this point it's imperative that I live vicariously through you." Suki said so seriously it made him crack up. She didn't last long before she joined him.

When they finally calmed down he started telling her the details, "So it started like this…"

_"Hey, Arty, can I cash in that rain check?" I asked as I leaned against the counter next to Artemis._

_She laughed a little before replying, "Depends, what do you plan to cash it in for?"_

_"How about a picnic by the pool? Kal told me the swim team won't be using it anymore today and since we don't exactly have a beach to go to I figured it was the next best thing."_

"Seriously? You are obsessed with food, dude." Suki interrupted .

"What? Most dates consist of some kind of food, it's practically a tradition!" Wally protested.

Suki laughed a bit before sobering up again, "Okay, okay, skip the undoubtedly fluffy details in the middle; I don't think I'm emotionally up to hearing them. It would just make my love life seem like it's full of even more angst than it already is."

"It'll get better." He assured her with a kind smile.

"Yeah, right." She said bitterly with an eye roll. "Anyway, just tell me what happened at the end."

He was eager to get her mind off of whatever was going on with Roy so he happily jumped back into his story. "Happy to; that was the best part. So we were just saying random facts about ourselves…"

_"Alright, I can do a backflip." Artemis said. "Your turn, special talent."_

_"I can do a handstand. Now it's not as impressive as a backflip, but…" okay, so I couldn't do a handstand, but I figured my attempt would make her laugh and that was quickly becoming my favorite sound in the world._

_I stepped away from the picnic blanket, not noticing it was closer to the pool, before attempting a handstand. Key word being attempting. I managed to stand on my hands for a total of 2.4 seconds, by my calculations, before I fell backwards, into the pool._

_I heard Artemis laugh as my head surfaced (success!), "Real smooth, Baywatch." She called to me as she walked over to the edge of the pool._

_She reached her arm down to help pull me out, but instead I pulled her in. I laughed as her head reappeared above water before she splashed water in my face. It was worth it because after I was able to pull her in towards me and kiss her. And I don't care what Percy Jackson says, _this _was the best underwater kiss ever, even if it wasn't _technically _underwater, but whatever._

"¡Ay dios mío! ¿Te besó? ¡Que increíble!" Suki said excitedly when he was finished. He was glad he had managed to distract her. But there was one problem…

Wally regarded her with a blank look. "I'm fluent in French not Spanish."

"I said: Oh my god! You guys kissed? That's awesome!"

"Oh," Wally laughed, "Yeah, yeah it was…" He started to stare off into space.

"Okay, hold it right there, I don't need you slipping into one of your little fantasies, Wallman, save that for when you're alone in your room."

"Oh I will." Wally said, only maintaining a straight face until he looked at Suki's mildly horrified one and then he completely lost it.

* * *

"Do you have it?" Red Arrow asked as soon as Nightwing came into view.

"I found some security tapes of her on Thursday, but are you sure you want to see this?" He asked before handing the video over. He was pretty sure, considering what he found, that Red Arrow was Roy Harper, and this could seriously affect his relationship with Suki and that wasn't Nightwing's place to mess with. Well, he would try and help however he could if this went south.

"I have to know." Red said before taking the video from Nightwing's hands and heading back to the dorms, again assuming Nightwing's assumptions were correct.

* * *

The video started off with Suki walking into the bank on Main Street. Roy skipped ahead in the video until she walked out again, or rather ran out. 'So she _did_ lie to me, she didn't get held hostage in the bank. But why?' The screen shifted to a feed from a traffic camera which showed her running into a department store about a block away from the bank. The next shift was to a camera inside the store where Suki ran into the bathroom. Roy seriously hoped there were no cameras in there. He sighed in relief when the next shift of cameras was to one outside the department store, with Emerald Torch flying out of the bathroom window. Roy was shocked, but he kept watching as there was more to the video. The next shift was a view from the same camera, but much later, if the change in the lighting was anything to go by. Emerald Torch landed outside the window and shifted back to Suki before running off again towards the dorms.

Roy almost shut the computer before the screen changed again. Across it were written the words: Be careful what you do with this information. If you want her to be safe, destroy this after you've watched it. If it doesn't work out how you want it to if you decide to tell her you know, come see me, I might be able to help. At the very least I can lend an understanding ear. –DG/NW

At that, Roy did shut the computer. He knew what the NW stood for: Nightwing, obviously. And clearly DG was his civilian ID, but Roy didn't know who that was. What business did Nightwing have in this, other than the fact that now he knew Suki was Emerald Torch? Roy laughed bitterly. Who was he kidding? Nightwing had probably always known. Roy on the other hand, he was shocked. Probably more than he had the right to be considering he had already thought about how the girls were similar. It didn't matter, she was important to him; he wasn't going to let this hurt their relationship. With that in mind he moved to his door to go find her and ask her to go out with him; they had been neglecting going on an actual first date.

As he grabbed his door handle, it was pushed open from the other side to reveal Suki, "Hey I was just going to come looking for you." He told her with a smile.

She didn't return it, "We need to talk, Roy."

He nodded, "Okay, come on in." He opened the door fully for her and she stepped in, not moving to sit down anywhere. He didn't either.

"I know we've been having some…_issues_ lately-"

"No, I was just being an idiot." He cut her off, and really he was. She had as good a reason to lie to him as he had to her. While he would prefer not to lie at all, they needed to ease into that.

She sighed tiredly as she tucked her hair behind her ear, "Roy-"

He moved forward and cupped her face in his hands, "It was my fault, okay?" She moved her head slightly, but not enough for him to be sure of her meaning. Her eyes looked so sad though. In that instant he made up his mind. He leaned forward and kissed her. It was by no means their first kiss, but he tried to put everything he couldn't say into it; he didn't want to lose her.

She didn't react at first, and he almost pulled away when she pushed back and slowly moved her hands to his shoulders and let one move up towards his hair. He wrapped his arms around her waist and gently took her bottom lip between his, asking for permission. She was quick to let him in. The kiss didn't last for an incredible amount of time, but it was more than enough for him. The feel of her mouth on his, their tongues struggling for dominance and her hands in his hair was he all he needed. He almost whimpered when she broke it off, but that would have been unmanly. Plus, it appeared breathing _was_ necessary for life. He wished it wasn't.

"Roy," She started, a little breathless, still looking at him with that sadness in her eyes, more pronounced now than before. When he didn't interrupt this time she continued. "I can't keep doing this. _We_ can't keep doing this. I want to, believe me I want to, but you deserve better than this. You deserve someone who can be honest with you and I just can't. I wish I could, but I can't and I can't wait for us to just fall apart either, that wouldn't be fair to either of us. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." She said as he saw tears start to well in her eyes.

He wanted to reach for her again and just hold her, comfort her, tell her that they could be honest with each other, that he was alright with her being Emerald Torch, but he couldn't. That wouldn't be fair to her. She obviously didn't want him to know ('Probably for my own safety since she thinks I'm a civilian.') and he wasn't going to make her deal with that if she wasn't ready to. The only thing he could do was support her the best way he could. So he let her go. She walked out of his room and down the hall and who knows where. And he watched from his doorway, one phrase on his lips. "You don't have to be sorry."

As he walked back into his room to destroy the CD, he saw Dick out of the corner of his eye standing in his doorway. He nodded to him. Dick gave him a sympathetic smile.

"Thanks, Grayson." He said as he closed the door. He had a feeling Dick heard. He also had a feeling Dick knew this was going to happen. But then again, what did he expect of the infamous Nightwing, trained by Batman, and evidently raised by Bruce Wayne. He might just take him up on that offer of an understanding ear.

* * *

**A/N: I'm not gonna say anything about how late this is and how sorry I am, I think you guys are all tired of hearing that (and if you're not you are a saint), but I have some good news: I now have a beta and trust me she's gonna make me write more. I mean threaten me however she can until I write, considering she owns my soul, I think this will be effective. I'm not promising I'll be faster, but I'm optimistic about it, which if you know me is a big deal. Thanks again, Edna (krazyessi), and thanks to all of you who are still reading this.**

**Reviews:**

**BatBrat: Yep the plot is definitely thickening, and judging by the implied noise you made I'm guessing you're enjoying it, for which I'm glad. I hope you enjoyed this one too.**

**Tigrun: Well, it was Roy, but if things go the way I want them to, Zatanna's going to know.**

**Greenarrow19: I hope this was worth the wait, and if it wasn't I'm terribly sorry.**

**Numbah435spiritsong: Lol, true his hair is pretty obvious, but I love it. I wish they would do a season three, I guess we just have to hope. (Wow, I'm being really optimistic today). It's totally fine that you thought he was basically a slightly less grown up Dick. Actually he probably looked like that at some point that we never saw, but yeah, he looks more like an acrobat when he's younger. Personally I prefer season 2 Dick's look but, eh, it's just a matter of opinion. And finally thank you I hope you liked this one too.**

**Stronger123: Thanks, glad to know I'm sort of doing it right.**

**Guest: Thank you 3**

**Superbubbles: Well, this is an OC centric story, and I know I kinda failed at that in the first couple chapters, but I'm working on improving it, so there is going to be some RoyXSuki in every chapter…or someone else interacting with Suki. Of course I couldn't resist putting Spitfire in there, especially since Suki wants them to get together, but I am going to try and focus more on Suki. Of course, like with this chapter, that doesn't mean there won't be any of the other ships as well. Wow, that was longer than I planned but I hope that makes sense.**

**J9162: Thank you, I hope you enjoyed this too.**

**Holy Chalant- Batman: Oh my gosh, I just realized I never responded to you review! I'm so, so, so sorry about that. But thank you so much. You made me smile for the rest of the day. I hope to put in some more Chalant soon, but I don't know when yet. There will definitely be more though, I'm just not sure when.**


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: I wish!**

* * *

"Suki, come on! Open up!" Wally yelled as he pounded on the door to Suki's room. He and Artemis had been standing out in the hall for the past twenty minutes trying to get Suki to come out and talk to them about what had happened. So far, nothing.

"Suki, we just want to talk." Artemis said. She had been trying the understanding tactic for a while now. Wally supposed they should at least cover all their bases if Suki wasn't going to come out anyway.

"She's not in there you know." They both turned around when they heard someone behind them. Walking hand in hand down the hall were Raquel and Kaldur. 'When did they become a thing?' A part of Wally's brain registered this, but with his super speed abilities, it made it harder to focus on one thing. He knew Suki needed his attention right now. He could wonder about Raquel and Kal later.

"Then where is she?" Artemis asked, putting her hands on her hips. Wally noticed her eyes cut to Raquel and Kal's joined hands too. Well, at least he wasn't the only one that didn't know.

Raquel shrugged, "Where do you think? She's in the gym punching the crap outta a punching bag." Raquel looked at the two of them in disbelief when they gave her confused looks. "What? You guys didn't actually think she would sulk in her room, did you? If she's having emotional problems, she takes it out on our equipment."

"Great. We'll head down there now. Thanks, Raquel." Wally said as he grabbed Artemis' hand and they walked off towards the judo gym.

"I would not advise approaching her while she is in this state." Kaldur advised them, "It was, quite frightening to behold."

"I'm sure we can handle it Kal. Thanks for the concern though." Artemis said before turning again and pulling Wally with her. He wasn't quite sure he wanted to do this anymore. But who was he kidding? Artemis was pulling him and Suki needed her friends, there was no way he was going to end up _not_ helping.

* * *

The gym was empty.

"Do you think Raquel was lying?" Wally asked as he looked around, double checking that he hadn't just missed Suki.

Artemis shook her head, "No. Look, Suki left her gym bag. She must have ditched it to go take out her emotional stuff on something else."

Wally threw his hands up in frustration. "Great, now how are we going to find her?"

Artemis shrugged. "We can try the track, she might have gone running." She didn't sound too confident though. "Have you considered that she just doesn't want us to find her?"

"Doesn't matter, she needs her friends, whether she wants us or not." Wally said, with a determined look on his face.

Artemis nodded and they headed towards the track.

* * *

Red Arrow looked down at the unconscious would-be thief lying at his feet. This was the second one he'd found today, and he only started patrol a little over an hour before. He had a few hours of time left to kill before he had to show up at the archery range. He figured he could fight a few crooks, put away a few scumbags and be on his way. He wasn't expecting someone to have already done the first one for him.

'Well I guess I should just follow the carnage.' He thought only slightly sarcastically as he picked up the unconscious man and headed towards the sound of police sirens.

* * *

The track was empty. Wally was sensing a pattern here.

"Okay, well what about the, the…" Wally let his sentence hang off, hoping Artemis would have some ideas. He was out of them. Well, he was out of the ideas he could pursue with Artemis anyway.

"Well are there any locker rooms here? Maybe she went there." He could tell she was grasping at straws but he appreciated it.

He nodded, "Yeah, over here." He gestured for her to follow him and walked across the track to the locker rooms. He pointed to the door on the left, "Boys, but I doubt she'd be in there," he pointed to the one on the right, "and girls. The doors are locked when there isn't a scheduled practice going on though."

"Well, let's just see about that." Artemis said as she stepped up to the girl's locker room door and tried the handle, with no luck.

"I can go find a janitor if you actually think she could be in there." He had to admit, he was starting to doubt it, but he wasn't going to just give up.

"Don't bother." Artemis said. He turned to leave, thinking she was on the same page he was and they were just going to wait for Suki at the dorm. That thought flew out the window when he heard a crash from behind him. He almost didn't want to turn around, but did anyway, slower than he ever does anything.

"Artemis, what did you do?" He asked slowly, reigning in his surprise. His girlfriend ('I can call her that by now right?') was standing with her foot extended where the door used to be. The door was still swinging a little. Crap.

She gave him a sheepish look. "I just pushed it really hard and it swung open."

He gave her an incredulous look. "With your foot? Artemis I think that's called kicking the door down."

"I don't think it was locked all the way." She said by way of explanation. He just gave her another weird look before gesturing for her to go ahead of him into the locker room. 'Most boys dream about this, but what do I get? The only time I'm ever in the girl's locker room is when it's empty.'

"Alright," he said as he looked around the room, "she's not here. Now what?"

"Maybe we should split up, you know, cover more ground." Artemis suggested.

Wally shook his head, "I don't think it's going to matter, it's not like she's running from us."

"Wally, I think I know a way to find her, but I have to do it alone." Artemis persisted.

"What? Why?" Wally asked. "Where could she be that I can't come with you? She's my friend too. I want to be there for her just as much as you do."

"You just can't come with me okay!" She said, starting to get frustrated.

"Why not?!" He asked, his voice rising.

"Because you can't jump across rooftops and be okay!" She finally exclaimed. As soon as she realized what she said though, her eyes widened and she covered her mouth. "Shit, I shouldn't have said that." She said through her hands. He just looked at her, hiding all the thoughts going on in his head with a blank look. "I wasn't going to tell you yet." She added, looking afraid of his reaction. That reminded him that he was probably supposed to have one.

"But you were planning on telling me?" He asked, somehow still keeping his face blank. He had a pretty good idea as to why she could jump rooftops, and if he was right, well he couldn't really be mad about that now could he? He was doing the same thing.

"Yes, just not like this." She nodded. "Guess I should just get it all over with though, huh?" She said shakily before he nodded. She took a breath, "Well, you know the superhero Artemis? Yeah, we have more in common than just a name."

Well he was right. He could live with that. In fact, same name, both archers, similar features (that he could see), he was sort of ashamed he hadn't figured it out sooner. He chose to blame it on lack of exposure to Gotham and Star City. He nodded, "Okay." He hoped he was showing her his support like this well enough. At this point he was a little afraid of just letting himself show her everything, one revelation at a time please. He would let her catch up to his acceptance before he shared his secret with her.

"No, Wally, I don't think you get what I'm trying to say-"

He cut her off. "I get it. You're Artemis, the new apprentice of Green Arrow, Red Arrow's replacement, and a damn good archer. You're also Artemis Crock, my girlfriend, very sarcastic, and still a damn good archer. Did I miss anything important?"

She shook her head slowly, "Well, no but… Why aren't you freaking out? You're taking this insanely well. You shouldn't be taking it so well!" She added exaggerated hand motions. He assumed that was because she was frustrated. "You should at least be mad that I lied."

He shrugged again, "Why? That would make me a hypocrite."

She stared at him open-mouthed. "What?!"

He walked over to her and placed his hands on her shoulders to steady and/or calm her. "Artemis, I can't be mad at you for that because I've been doing the same thing."

"What, just because you're a red-head I'm supposed to believe that you're Red Arrow?" She asked, jumping to the wrong conclusion.

He actually chuckled as he shook his head, "No," and then he was gone only to be back ('in a flash, as Uncle Barry would say') holding a rose. "But you _should_ believe that I'm Kid Flash, because I can break the sound barrier in my sneakers." He offered her the rose.

She laughed weakly before taking it. "Looks like we picked good partners then."

"Yeah, no judgment for the lying." Wally agreed.

"Absolutely none." Artemis nodded. "Just one question: Why do you still call yourself Kid Flash? You aren't exactly a kid anymore."

He shrugged, "No one else to take the name up, I figured I'd stick with it."

"Dork." She said. "My dork." She added at his offended look. "So, do I need to worry about impressing any superheroes in order to be your girlfriend?"

"Nah, Uncle Barry's going to love you." He ignored her surprised look that he would just tell her who the Flash was. "However, there is a certain hero that would like to know about this, but we have to find her first, she really needs the support of her friends." He smirked a little when Artemis' eyes widened in recognition. 'Dear God, don't let Suki kill me for this.'

* * *

"Here, found another one." Red Arrow said before handing the guy he'd picked up to the nearest police officer. It looked like he'd found what he was looking for. A few police cars were all parked outside of a jewelry store a few blocks from where he had found the first unconscious criminal. "Anyone know what's going on?" He asked the police officer.

He shook his head, "Not really, just got a call about some guy holding up the jewelry store. Said there were hostages and when we got here, all the hostages were coming out and Emerald Torch was flying up to the roof. She hasn't come down since and we don't know where she took the guy."

"Did you say Emerald Torch?" Red asked. The policeman nodded, "Then I think I know where he is." Red said grimly before heading towards the fire escape on the side of the building. Time to start being the supportive guy and hope Suki didn't punch him for it. The sight that greeted him when he stepped onto the roof was Emerald Torch holding a pretty big guy up by the collar (with her ring) and punching him, mainly in the gut and face. "I don't think your punching bag's too fond of his job."

"It's not really up to him, though, is it?" She responded, barely pausing to look in his direction. "What are you doing here, Red?" She asked. He was just glad she seemed to be focusing on talking to him instead of punching the criminal.

"I've been following your trail of unconscious criminals. I figured something was up, so what is it?" He asked. He had a feeling he knew, but he hoped he was wrong. He hated to see her hurting, even if it seemed like she was the one doing the hurting here.

"It's none of your business." She said before turning back to start punching the man again. Red stepped up and grabbed her arm before she could. She turned and gave him what would usually be a pretty frightening glare, if he couldn't see the hurting girl behind it. "Let go." She said in a slow and would-be dangerous voice, but again her pain shone through and her voice wavered.

"I think he's had enough. Let me hand him over to the police." He said. When she still looked defiant he added, "Hurting him isn't going to change anything. Let me hand him over to the police and then you can tell me what's going on. I can help you do something that will actually help." He could actually see it when she gave up, and not just because the energy from her ring that was holding the man up disappeared.

"Why are you being so nice to me?" She asked when he came back up to the roof to sit next to her. "I thought we had a mutual hate thing going on." He laughed at her weak attempt at humor.

"I thought we did too, but you look like you could use a friend and I'm available so… What's got you so desperate to distract yourself that you had to come out here and punch the crap out of any and all criminals you saw?"

"It's nothing." She said, still trying to avoid a conversation.

"It didn't look like nothing." He said gently.

She raised an eyebrow at him before sighing and responding, "I just had a break-up, that's all."

"You know, it just so happens that that is something I can give advice about." She shot him a look that said she didn't believe him.

"Really? _You_ have relationship advice?" She asked incredulously.

"Hey, I happen to give great relationship advice." He said, throwing his arms out in mock indignation. She shook her head before gesturing for him to go ahead. "Alright, so, why did he break up with you?" He wished he could just tell her straight out that he still cared about her, but she didn't know that he was, well himself. He had to play dumb if this was ever going to work.

"He didn't, I broke up with him."

"Well then why are you so sad and angry about it? Was he really that bad at kissing?" He asked, hoping she would laugh at the second question.

She did, and for a second, she just seemed happy and that hurt girl was gone. Unfortunately that second couldn't last forever. "No, that wasn't it. He was actually really good at that." He allowed himself a moment of pride at that when her gaze got distant. She shook her head again and continued answering his question. "I just couldn't stand lying to him about all this anymore, but I couldn't tell him, it wasn't his burden to bear. I couldn't just force that information on him and expect him to just deal with it. He had more important things to be focusing on."

"Alright, prepare for some good advice." He said, rubbing his palms together. She laughed again. He was starting to think that was his ulterior motive here: to make her laugh and smile as much as he possibly could. "I went through a similar breakup, except I was the one who got dumped. I was dating this awesome girl and it was great. I liked her, she liked me, and things were going well. The thing is, we didn't know each other that well before we started dating so there was a lot about her I didn't know and vice-versa. Well, I got a chance at my big break about a month or two into the relationship and of course I told her because I was thrilled. I didn't know she had something she needed to tell me too, something a lot less happy.

"It turns out her little brother was really sick and it didn't look like he was going to make it, so she was going back home to be with him while she could. She didn't tell me that and broke up with me the next day, saying it was for the best. She said that she didn't want me to get distracted from getting my big break. I found out about her brother when I called her and her sister picked up instead. After that I stopped calling to try and find out why she'd ended it. I knew she didn't want to, but felt like she had to. So I let her go."

"I'm sorry, Red." She told him quietly, likely thinking about how her reasons had been similar, though less depressing. "I don't get how this applies to me though. I was the one who broke up with him, not the other way around."

"I'm just saying, if he let you go, that means he really does care about you. Give it time and when you think you're ready to tell him, try again. I'm sure he'll still be there for you."

"Did you two try again?"

"I'm still waiting for it." He said, turning away from her, he knew if he was looking at her he wouldn't be able to stop himself from trying.

* * *

"Hold on." Kid Flash said as he grabbed Artemis' shoulder before she could run over to the other rooftop.

"What? We found her. Shouldn't we be going to get her?" Artemis asked, placing her hands on her hips.

"Normally, yes, but I think she has company." He pointed to Red Arrow as he climbed up the fire escape and sat down next to her.

"I thought she hated him." Artemis said, confused.

"So did I, but I think he's doing a better job of comforting her than we would be. He doesn't have any connections to Roy."

"I hope you're right." Artemis said, watching Suki laugh before following him back to the dorms. It looked like they would be waiting for Suki in the dorms after all. Maybe they could get some ice cream on the way, girls use that for broken hearts all the time, right?

* * *

**Reviews:**

**Stronger123: Thank you so much!**

**Booklover1598: Lol, don't worry, things will start getting better for him, at least somewhat.**

**BatBrat: Oh, I'm so sorry, but I'm also really happy that someone reacted so much to this so… I think I have the same problem.**

**ShadowlightStarlight: Don't worry about it. Roy did connect it, at least at the very end, but he hasn't done anything about it yet, but trust me, he will. And thank you.**

**Numbah435spiritsong: Yeah, sorry about the gap between my updates, but I'm working on it. Thank you and yes there is Supermartian in this, but I think I'm going to be putting that and AquaRocket on the backburner so to speak and focus more on Spitfire, Chalant and SukixRoy as the main pairings. There should be Supermartian in the next chapter though. Yeah, Roy is basically awesome.**

**Luv2read: Thank you. You aren't wrong though, they're just having some problems.**

**Jenn: Thank you. I'm glad it came together for you and yes you are correct, she doesn't know, yet. If you have any other questions, feel free to message me about it or put in in a review, I'm always happy to answer.**


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